Old tower off London Wall. I used to walk past this every day on the way to work. It's very intriguing...
Monday, December 26, 2005
JetSlag
Coming over you like a 10 pence tart. Ooh, what a cow!
Well, I made it home. Driving through blizzards on Wednesday night was slightly more than alarming as the road markings became unclear and vision grew desperately poor, but a late dinner at JoyFull (saba teshoku- mackerel set dinner- was to be my last official Japanese meal of 2005 made up for some of it. A few hours sleep at Fiona's and I was back in Efi sliding along icy roads to get to the airport where snow was causing trouble again. It appeared that there was no issue with the flights taking off (although if an announcement was made I wouldn't have understood it) and after sitting on the plane for an hour watching men with hoses rinse ice off the wings (I have no idea why in Japan water+ice doesn't = more ice) we finally took off. And Korean Air had kindly placed the three foriegners together- me, Tyler and Christiana. Poor Christiana was of flying and we spent much of the leg reassuring her, but it was good that we were able to. At Seoul they were cancelling flights back into Japan because of the weather.
From Korea the remainder of the journey was pretty event-free, although I managed to break ANOTHER suitcase in duty free (I knocked it into the display and the handle broke- d'oh!) and got my first whiff of public wee-cleaner (ie cheap bleach) in the stairwell to Heathrow car park. Oh! The joys of home... Thanks to Ma and Pa and the brother for picking me up. It was odd to see no snow anywhere around.
After getting to bed at around 10:30 I was up at 5 on Friday and out in Oxford street by 9:30, having my haircut and attempting to shop, and resisting the urge to screech "Ohayo Gozaimasu!!!" at everyone I saw. But as the phone ran out of juice and I ran out of steam I decided to head home, and was lay down watching my sole purchase (Scooby Doo dvd) and dozing off at three.
Christmas Eve was much better as I headed out early again and met Megan in London, having already bumped into my old French teacher when I got off the train. Oxford street was surprisingly empty, so we did our shopping and went fot a wander down Charing Cross Road, to (THE) Trafalgar Square for photos and insensitive comments about the statue on the fourth plinth, wandered further to see the Changing of the Guards at St James' Park (where we strolled and had tea and cake) and then crossed the river to the London Eye to meet Eugene and Yuko. After a drink in a nice riverside pub we headed our seperate ways, me wandering along the South Bank and heading back to Liverpool Street via St Pauls and London Wall. I am a tourist in my own town! Yay!
Well, I was supposed to be in the pub for Christmas Eve drinks, but after dinner and some hard exercise wrapping presents it was game over and I was asleep on the sofa, only to be woken up for midnight mass where the hymns got slower and I got more sulky and tired. Until it was time to go at which point I perked up and ended up awake till 3:30. And on Christmas day we were up at 8 for no particluar reason, but at noon we headed to brother's to see him, his missus, her Mother and the baby and had a lovely day of eating and gurgling and eating. And I passed out at 7:30. D'oh!
It became another late night anyway- 2am- and today I was awake at 7. So again it's been a family day of eating and gurgling as yesterday's crowd came round here. It's been fun and nice and sugar-filled, but I'm just getting ready to pass out again...
Merry Christmas!
Well, I made it home. Driving through blizzards on Wednesday night was slightly more than alarming as the road markings became unclear and vision grew desperately poor, but a late dinner at JoyFull (saba teshoku- mackerel set dinner- was to be my last official Japanese meal of 2005 made up for some of it. A few hours sleep at Fiona's and I was back in Efi sliding along icy roads to get to the airport where snow was causing trouble again. It appeared that there was no issue with the flights taking off (although if an announcement was made I wouldn't have understood it) and after sitting on the plane for an hour watching men with hoses rinse ice off the wings (I have no idea why in Japan water+ice doesn't = more ice) we finally took off. And Korean Air had kindly placed the three foriegners together- me, Tyler and Christiana. Poor Christiana was of flying and we spent much of the leg reassuring her, but it was good that we were able to. At Seoul they were cancelling flights back into Japan because of the weather.
From Korea the remainder of the journey was pretty event-free, although I managed to break ANOTHER suitcase in duty free (I knocked it into the display and the handle broke- d'oh!) and got my first whiff of public wee-cleaner (ie cheap bleach) in the stairwell to Heathrow car park. Oh! The joys of home... Thanks to Ma and Pa and the brother for picking me up. It was odd to see no snow anywhere around.
After getting to bed at around 10:30 I was up at 5 on Friday and out in Oxford street by 9:30, having my haircut and attempting to shop, and resisting the urge to screech "Ohayo Gozaimasu!!!" at everyone I saw. But as the phone ran out of juice and I ran out of steam I decided to head home, and was lay down watching my sole purchase (Scooby Doo dvd) and dozing off at three.
Christmas Eve was much better as I headed out early again and met Megan in London, having already bumped into my old French teacher when I got off the train. Oxford street was surprisingly empty, so we did our shopping and went fot a wander down Charing Cross Road, to (THE) Trafalgar Square for photos and insensitive comments about the statue on the fourth plinth, wandered further to see the Changing of the Guards at St James' Park (where we strolled and had tea and cake) and then crossed the river to the London Eye to meet Eugene and Yuko. After a drink in a nice riverside pub we headed our seperate ways, me wandering along the South Bank and heading back to Liverpool Street via St Pauls and London Wall. I am a tourist in my own town! Yay!
Well, I was supposed to be in the pub for Christmas Eve drinks, but after dinner and some hard exercise wrapping presents it was game over and I was asleep on the sofa, only to be woken up for midnight mass where the hymns got slower and I got more sulky and tired. Until it was time to go at which point I perked up and ended up awake till 3:30. And on Christmas day we were up at 8 for no particluar reason, but at noon we headed to brother's to see him, his missus, her Mother and the baby and had a lovely day of eating and gurgling and eating. And I passed out at 7:30. D'oh!
It became another late night anyway- 2am- and today I was awake at 7. So again it's been a family day of eating and gurgling as yesterday's crowd came round here. It's been fun and nice and sugar-filled, but I'm just getting ready to pass out again...
Merry Christmas!
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Merry Christmas!
Happy Christmas to you all! I am happily writing this from a nice centrally-heated bedroom in England. Although clearly it's too hot with the central heating on, but it makes a nice change.
Have a great day!
Have a great day!
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Leaving on a Jet plane. Or not.
Sorry?
Sorry, could you say that again?
What?
Big what?
Big snow?
BIG SNOW?
What BIG SNOW?
Excuse the next word: SHIT! It's another big snow. Apparently. And this time big has a measurement. 60 cms to be precise. And it's supposed to start falling any moment. "So, escape to the city" you say. Well, that would be grand, and I plan to do it, but there is expected to also be big snow in the city. 30cms to be precise. And teachers seemed very keen to warn me that the airport might be closed due to snow. Well, I'll be making a one-man protest in the airport-restaurant if anyone dares hold up my plane! Get the gritters out I say!
In other news, mass hysteria almost ensued after the woman at the Vodafone shop managed to complete some paperwork in less than 5 minutes (compared to the usual 3 hours). Today also saw 4 successful lessons where 4 classes of students made truffles and only 1 pretended they didn't like them (seemingly following the teacher's lead). Yay for the three. And finally the school dinner lady who has been rather irritating for the last 16 months was rather nice and pleasant to talk to today.
Of course none of these plusses will remain a plus if I remain stuck in Okayama airport tomorrow morning. I shall do unspeakable things to unfortunate people who cross my path.
And with that,
Merry Christmas all and one and happy new year and such like.
Except I'll probably be updating this from the airport lobby in the morning and what I write will not be suitable for younger viewers...
Sorry, could you say that again?
What?
Big what?
Big snow?
BIG SNOW?
What BIG SNOW?
Excuse the next word: SHIT! It's another big snow. Apparently. And this time big has a measurement. 60 cms to be precise. And it's supposed to start falling any moment. "So, escape to the city" you say. Well, that would be grand, and I plan to do it, but there is expected to also be big snow in the city. 30cms to be precise. And teachers seemed very keen to warn me that the airport might be closed due to snow. Well, I'll be making a one-man protest in the airport-restaurant if anyone dares hold up my plane! Get the gritters out I say!
In other news, mass hysteria almost ensued after the woman at the Vodafone shop managed to complete some paperwork in less than 5 minutes (compared to the usual 3 hours). Today also saw 4 successful lessons where 4 classes of students made truffles and only 1 pretended they didn't like them (seemingly following the teacher's lead). Yay for the three. And finally the school dinner lady who has been rather irritating for the last 16 months was rather nice and pleasant to talk to today.
Of course none of these plusses will remain a plus if I remain stuck in Okayama airport tomorrow morning. I shall do unspeakable things to unfortunate people who cross my path.
And with that,
Merry Christmas all and one and happy new year and such like.
Except I'll probably be updating this from the airport lobby in the morning and what I write will not be suitable for younger viewers...
Monday, December 19, 2005
Big Snow
The theme of the last few days has been snow. Big snow. In the supermarket people have talked about "big snow". On the phone, "big snow" and in weekend planning, "big snow". Now, I am a regular visitor to weather websites what with being British and being bored and all, but none of them gave mention of big snow. The first I knew was when Nao-chan nearly had a stroke in the supermarket on Friday lunchtime when I said I was going to Okayama on Saturday:
"You have snow tyres now?"
"No. But we don't have them in England. It'll be fine"
"But this weekend, BIG SNOW"
"It didn't say that on the weather"
*shaking and almost passing out* "Get snow tyres, at the weekend BIG SNOW. YOU MUST GET SNOW TYRES!!"
So on returning to school I eventually called the man from whom I rent the car and asked if I needed snow tyres.
"Ah, Snow tyres. I said I give you snow tyre next year... But... This weekend... BIG SNOW... You need snow tyre... BIG SNOW"
So on Friday evening I got my tyres and thought nothing more of it. Went to dinner with Nao-chan and watched DVDs at home. (Am practicing avoidance techniques as it's too cold to clean and pack).
Saturday morning came and what in retrospect was probably "small-medium" snow had fallen. There was a nice thick coating on everything, but not too much, so I set off at 12 and 2 towns later the snow was gone- it was as if I'd driven back into late Autumn.
The city as usual was warmer, though still cold, and I parked my car at Amy and Herb's where we chatted for a bit then set out to do some last minute tasks before meeting at the Fantasy (2005 Momotaroh Fantasy) at 6pm. Except we met instead at the coffee house at 5:30 with Betsy and visiting-boyfriend Timur also present, and and on the way to the Fantasy I managed to force two high-school cyclists off the pavement and into the oncoming traffic. Oops.
We had dinner in the Italian restaurant in the Cred building and then headed back to Gorilla bar (which it turns out is called 'Gorilla bar', 'La Li' and 'La Li Lu Le Lo'. Why have one name when you can have three?). Only it was closed until 9:30, so we started our usual wandering around the city, deciding on karaoke but changing our minds when there was a 30 minute wait. Amy and I were further delayed by a crazy city Elementary school teacher who loved Britain and the Beatles and loved Canada and had a nephew in one of Amy's schools. She was slightly (i.e. very) drunk, and very friendly and seemed overjoyed to have met us and after our group started to move she spent approximately 5 minutes apologising and thanking us and bowing and waving. She appeared to be slightly bonkers but in a very friendly entertaining way.
We finally made it to Gorilla bar (via 7:11) at 9:30 and at 11:30, depite our best intentions, headed to the Red Moon for a while. We were soon on our way back to Amy and Herb's place, and along the way Adam found and lost a fake fur scarf, I hunted for ichigo daifuku (eventually finding them only for Amy to try it and have to spit it out declaring it not tasty) and it started snowing. So immediately our concerns about big-snow were back. We got indoors, chatted and went to sleep, expecting to wake up to a carpet of snow outside.
9am Sunday came and it was warm, bright and snow free, and as we walked to a revolving sushi restaurant it all seemed a bit confusing. So we ate, chatted and said our goodbyes for Christmas, Adam taking off on his bike and after another coffee with Amy and Herb, me taking off in Efi.
Now, leaving the city there was still no sign of big snow, so I took the slow roads (which aren't really that slow) and it was only after an half hour that I started to see snow. And then near Takebe there was a lot of snow. Turning onto the windy mountain road to Ochiai was slightly alarming as the road was covered with impacted, slippy snow, pulled-over cars and more slippy snow. So with Efi in 4 wheel drive mode we trundled on, sliding left and right with almost reckless abandon and skidding all over the shop. If the whiteness wasn't so pretty and distracting it would have been quite scary. Especially when I tried to turn the corner onto a bridge in Asahi-cho and Efi slid so far that she almost overshot the bridge entirely...
Well, I made it home to find the 20cms of snow I had been warned of that morning by Nao-chan and for the first time had to shovel snow from my parking space. And with it still snowing I went for a long walk to the shops and around, taking pictures along the way only to arrive home and find my laptop had gone kaputt, switching itself off every three minutes (huge big buggery GAH!).
And today it's still snowing, although it seems like it might ease. It could all be gone by 3 o'clock if the sun shines hard enough. And in three days time I'll be in the land of central heating...
"You have snow tyres now?"
"No. But we don't have them in England. It'll be fine"
"But this weekend, BIG SNOW"
"It didn't say that on the weather"
*shaking and almost passing out* "Get snow tyres, at the weekend BIG SNOW. YOU MUST GET SNOW TYRES!!"
So on returning to school I eventually called the man from whom I rent the car and asked if I needed snow tyres.
"Ah, Snow tyres. I said I give you snow tyre next year... But... This weekend... BIG SNOW... You need snow tyre... BIG SNOW"
So on Friday evening I got my tyres and thought nothing more of it. Went to dinner with Nao-chan and watched DVDs at home. (Am practicing avoidance techniques as it's too cold to clean and pack).
Saturday morning came and what in retrospect was probably "small-medium" snow had fallen. There was a nice thick coating on everything, but not too much, so I set off at 12 and 2 towns later the snow was gone- it was as if I'd driven back into late Autumn.
The city as usual was warmer, though still cold, and I parked my car at Amy and Herb's where we chatted for a bit then set out to do some last minute tasks before meeting at the Fantasy (2005 Momotaroh Fantasy) at 6pm. Except we met instead at the coffee house at 5:30 with Betsy and visiting-boyfriend Timur also present, and and on the way to the Fantasy I managed to force two high-school cyclists off the pavement and into the oncoming traffic. Oops.
We had dinner in the Italian restaurant in the Cred building and then headed back to Gorilla bar (which it turns out is called 'Gorilla bar', 'La Li' and 'La Li Lu Le Lo'. Why have one name when you can have three?). Only it was closed until 9:30, so we started our usual wandering around the city, deciding on karaoke but changing our minds when there was a 30 minute wait. Amy and I were further delayed by a crazy city Elementary school teacher who loved Britain and the Beatles and loved Canada and had a nephew in one of Amy's schools. She was slightly (i.e. very) drunk, and very friendly and seemed overjoyed to have met us and after our group started to move she spent approximately 5 minutes apologising and thanking us and bowing and waving. She appeared to be slightly bonkers but in a very friendly entertaining way.
We finally made it to Gorilla bar (via 7:11) at 9:30 and at 11:30, depite our best intentions, headed to the Red Moon for a while. We were soon on our way back to Amy and Herb's place, and along the way Adam found and lost a fake fur scarf, I hunted for ichigo daifuku (eventually finding them only for Amy to try it and have to spit it out declaring it not tasty) and it started snowing. So immediately our concerns about big-snow were back. We got indoors, chatted and went to sleep, expecting to wake up to a carpet of snow outside.
9am Sunday came and it was warm, bright and snow free, and as we walked to a revolving sushi restaurant it all seemed a bit confusing. So we ate, chatted and said our goodbyes for Christmas, Adam taking off on his bike and after another coffee with Amy and Herb, me taking off in Efi.
Now, leaving the city there was still no sign of big snow, so I took the slow roads (which aren't really that slow) and it was only after an half hour that I started to see snow. And then near Takebe there was a lot of snow. Turning onto the windy mountain road to Ochiai was slightly alarming as the road was covered with impacted, slippy snow, pulled-over cars and more slippy snow. So with Efi in 4 wheel drive mode we trundled on, sliding left and right with almost reckless abandon and skidding all over the shop. If the whiteness wasn't so pretty and distracting it would have been quite scary. Especially when I tried to turn the corner onto a bridge in Asahi-cho and Efi slid so far that she almost overshot the bridge entirely...
Well, I made it home to find the 20cms of snow I had been warned of that morning by Nao-chan and for the first time had to shovel snow from my parking space. And with it still snowing I went for a long walk to the shops and around, taking pictures along the way only to arrive home and find my laptop had gone kaputt, switching itself off every three minutes (huge big buggery GAH!).
And today it's still snowing, although it seems like it might ease. It could all be gone by 3 o'clock if the sun shines hard enough. And in three days time I'll be in the land of central heating...
Friday, December 16, 2005
Wash those cares away...
Having expected this week to be a week of wallpaper-staring boredom I've actually been pleasantly surprised. After Monday's shenanigans in the city there was our severely dwindling eikaiwa (teachers: 2, organiser: 1, attendees: 2- oh dear) on Tuesday, followed by the night of staring at wallpaper (actually spent singing -jing- my leg hairs under the lovely kotatsu heated-table contraption and then last night was a marathon. After a day of making snowflakes at elementary school with 5, 6 and 7 year olds I had a nice evening planned. Do the washing (laundry) and take it to the launderette to dry it, then go to dinner with Christine, Jeremy, Kapo-chan and Jaco at Wakaba.
Well, the launderette was a dream, and the experience added to the long list of things you can do in Japan that you can't do elsewhere:
#8,912 Leave your car unlocked while you go into the launderette
#8,913 Leave your wallet on a random counter while you wander about trying to get change from a machine
#8,914 Drive away leaving 80% of your clothing in a dryer knowing they'll still be there when you get back 45 minutes later.
Although how much of this is because I live in the countryside I do not know.
Anyway, I collected and dropped off my lovely clean and almost crease free washing and headed to Wakaba for a really, really good meal with good company which at one point included a drunken old man with only 2 teeth that couldn't be further apart if they tried. This added to the overall effect as his tongue had a life of it's own and seemed to be doing the hokey-hokey while he repeated 2 of the 4 words of English he knew over and over to Christine who had a suitably disgusted look on her face. You would look appalled too if an old man stood over you repeating, "young", making a licking motion with his tongue, saying "beautiful" and following it with more licking motion. I just sat there laughing with tears streaming down my face. Rude, possibly, but keeping a straight face was impossible.
After a few drinks someone suggested karaoke, so we headed to Katsuyama karaoke bar, a place that becomes less grand by the minute. I could feel it deteriorating while we were in there. But they have upgraded their machines and have many more songs than before which is always a good thing. And due to popular demand our 1 hour slot became 2 and we drank lots more and when the singing turned to screaming turned to croaking we knew it was time to leave. So we all headed home, me marvelling at how the extremely hard-frost/ dusting of snow made the world look like someone had rubbed it with a glitter stick.
I somehow managed to spend an hour faffing about finally going to bed at 3 am and waking up soon after thinking I may be too drunk to go to school. But no, here I am with more free time. Such a difference from yesterday's making snowflakes and answering questions like "can you eat Japanese sushi". Still, after 17 months, people aren't bored with asking that. Kudos to them. Or something...
Well, the launderette was a dream, and the experience added to the long list of things you can do in Japan that you can't do elsewhere:
#8,912 Leave your car unlocked while you go into the launderette
#8,913 Leave your wallet on a random counter while you wander about trying to get change from a machine
#8,914 Drive away leaving 80% of your clothing in a dryer knowing they'll still be there when you get back 45 minutes later.
Although how much of this is because I live in the countryside I do not know.
Anyway, I collected and dropped off my lovely clean and almost crease free washing and headed to Wakaba for a really, really good meal with good company which at one point included a drunken old man with only 2 teeth that couldn't be further apart if they tried. This added to the overall effect as his tongue had a life of it's own and seemed to be doing the hokey-hokey while he repeated 2 of the 4 words of English he knew over and over to Christine who had a suitably disgusted look on her face. You would look appalled too if an old man stood over you repeating, "young", making a licking motion with his tongue, saying "beautiful" and following it with more licking motion. I just sat there laughing with tears streaming down my face. Rude, possibly, but keeping a straight face was impossible.
After a few drinks someone suggested karaoke, so we headed to Katsuyama karaoke bar, a place that becomes less grand by the minute. I could feel it deteriorating while we were in there. But they have upgraded their machines and have many more songs than before which is always a good thing. And due to popular demand our 1 hour slot became 2 and we drank lots more and when the singing turned to screaming turned to croaking we knew it was time to leave. So we all headed home, me marvelling at how the extremely hard-frost/ dusting of snow made the world look like someone had rubbed it with a glitter stick.
I somehow managed to spend an hour faffing about finally going to bed at 3 am and waking up soon after thinking I may be too drunk to go to school. But no, here I am with more free time. Such a difference from yesterday's making snowflakes and answering questions like "can you eat Japanese sushi". Still, after 17 months, people aren't bored with asking that. Kudos to them. Or something...
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
Where do I live?
It has been suggested rather frequently that I am in the city rather too often and that I almost live there. It is true that I spend maybe 7 out of 8 weekends away from my town and 5 or 6 of those will be in the city. And having a car makes it worse- now I can go midweek too! It is great having the freedom to get about more easily. On Friday night I was whizzing round narrow, bendy mountain roads to get to the city for Julia's belated-birthday-bash and making it into the city in under two hours (who needs the expressway!).
We were to meet at the "2005 Momotaroh Fantasy". This exotic-sounding feature is not so fantastic, but very pretty. They have installed a huge Christmas tree and plastic privet hedges outside of the entrance to Okayama station in an attempt to recreate an area of an 18th century park. If there was ever an emergency fairly light shortage Okayama could surely come to the rescue. Well, I met Adam and Julia's friend Junko at the Fantasy and when Julia arrived we headed off to meet Claire and Kana and to hit the karaoke salon where we were later joined by Dylan and Nancy. We belted out a variety of hits and shits, marvelled at everyone's singing and took lots of photos. And according to the machine we burnt approximately 11 calories per song, which led Claire and I to think that the machine wasn't quite working. Although the heat was cranked right up, so the sauna effect may have been working in our favour.
After karaoke we checked the alternatives- Red Moon and Desperadoes and finding both dead we stocked up on snacks (ie I bought a week's supply of chocolate) and we headed back to Julia's to watch Charlie's Angels. Despite being rather sleepy throughout the film we all managed to perk up once it was over and Dylan, Adam, Julia and I were up till maybe 3:00 chatting. Oops.
So on Saturday Adam and I both had things to do so we rose early, headed to the city and went our separate ways. He to Toys'R'Us and me to Fiona's for the car so I could ferry people to and from the orphanage. I began to get a bad feeling about this when the rendezvous time arrived and I was the only one of the three car drivers there, but soon Matt showed up and we were on our way. Only to go wrong when it turned out that I couldn't remember the way. And when we stopped to ask an old man where the orphanage was, none of us knew the Japanese word for orphanage, so I had to ask for the "house of the children who don't have parents". He was very helpful but must have been wondering why a car full of foreigners wanted to go to a house where the kids had no parents...
After ferrying people there my car got stuck in the car park and I couldn't escape to meet Busty and ended up helping set things up, doing last minute wrapping, checking, decorating with Ilana and helping sort the food and drinks. Rachel (nickname pending) had organised the whole deal and did a great job. John made a great Santa and Barbie an excellent Mrs Claus, and even though I knew she spoke amazing Japanese, it was still a shock when it came fluently from her mouth.
So with the orphanage over we set about having our last big night out before Christmas. Only it seemed everyone else had had the same idea. We had planned on going to Asian Kitchen, but it was full. Then we tried an Izakaya and it too was full. Fortunately we pretty quickly found an almost empty Chinese restaurant where Rachel and I ordered a tofu set meal forgetting for a moment that we were in Japan and that despite the lack of mention on meat on the menu it would almost surely be in the food. So we picked bits of tofu out and rubbed off the mince and it wasn't too bad. The conversation was good and the place was warm, and pretty soon we knew we'd made a mistake leaving early as we wandered the streets in search of a bar that would fit our group of 8 and later another group of 8. Having tried 5 places we ended up walking towards a sixth, fortuitously bumping into Justin who knew of a seventh and took us there. It was the Gorilla bar (although I don't think it was actually called that) and had a big gorilla stuck on the wall outside the windows on the fifth floor. And it was like a real bar. Spacious, busy (but not too crowded), no need to order food... So we stayed until people started to leave for their last trains and the remainder of us headed to Red Moon which was busier than ever. We didn't stop too long as Julia hadn't come out and Adam and I were staying at her place, so at midnight we left with Rachel and somehow managed to not get to bed until around 3:30.
And Sunday was a 9:30 start. Adam and I headed into the city, him for Christmas shopping, me to find the hall where Nao-chan's choral group was performing. Her group, the Tsukida chorus was taking part in a competition and performed 2 songs and after them the Katsuyama chorus performed with Sunami-san from the camera shop singing, and my Junior high's music teacher conducting. It was lovely music, and it would have been good to stop longer, but we had important things to do. Nao-chan and I headed for lunch at Cannery Row (excellent value) and then to the shops, although finding a parking space was like finding a room in Bethlehem. We eventually parked by the Red-Light district, paying 100 yen per 20 minutes (!!) So we rushed off, did our shopping and headed back home.
After the intial shock and worry, I was relieved to hear that the explosions in Hemel Hempstead (London) were accidental and went back to planning the week ahead. That included ANOTHER trip to the city last night where I did a spot more Christmas shopping and headed to dinner with Fiona only to bump into Amy (now officially Amy Tan) and Herb and Julia. And eventually dragging myself away, I wove the car around the mountains to find it -4 degrees in Ochiai at 10:45pm and snowing in Katsuyama. But it stopped about 1 minute later. But it was still more snow. It had snowed all day yesterday (and not settled) and it's supposed to snow every day until Sunday. D'oh. And I still have no snow tires...
We were to meet at the "2005 Momotaroh Fantasy". This exotic-sounding feature is not so fantastic, but very pretty. They have installed a huge Christmas tree and plastic privet hedges outside of the entrance to Okayama station in an attempt to recreate an area of an 18th century park. If there was ever an emergency fairly light shortage Okayama could surely come to the rescue. Well, I met Adam and Julia's friend Junko at the Fantasy and when Julia arrived we headed off to meet Claire and Kana and to hit the karaoke salon where we were later joined by Dylan and Nancy. We belted out a variety of hits and shits, marvelled at everyone's singing and took lots of photos. And according to the machine we burnt approximately 11 calories per song, which led Claire and I to think that the machine wasn't quite working. Although the heat was cranked right up, so the sauna effect may have been working in our favour.
After karaoke we checked the alternatives- Red Moon and Desperadoes and finding both dead we stocked up on snacks (ie I bought a week's supply of chocolate) and we headed back to Julia's to watch Charlie's Angels. Despite being rather sleepy throughout the film we all managed to perk up once it was over and Dylan, Adam, Julia and I were up till maybe 3:00 chatting. Oops.
So on Saturday Adam and I both had things to do so we rose early, headed to the city and went our separate ways. He to Toys'R'Us and me to Fiona's for the car so I could ferry people to and from the orphanage. I began to get a bad feeling about this when the rendezvous time arrived and I was the only one of the three car drivers there, but soon Matt showed up and we were on our way. Only to go wrong when it turned out that I couldn't remember the way. And when we stopped to ask an old man where the orphanage was, none of us knew the Japanese word for orphanage, so I had to ask for the "house of the children who don't have parents". He was very helpful but must have been wondering why a car full of foreigners wanted to go to a house where the kids had no parents...
After ferrying people there my car got stuck in the car park and I couldn't escape to meet Busty and ended up helping set things up, doing last minute wrapping, checking, decorating with Ilana and helping sort the food and drinks. Rachel (nickname pending) had organised the whole deal and did a great job. John made a great Santa and Barbie an excellent Mrs Claus, and even though I knew she spoke amazing Japanese, it was still a shock when it came fluently from her mouth.
So with the orphanage over we set about having our last big night out before Christmas. Only it seemed everyone else had had the same idea. We had planned on going to Asian Kitchen, but it was full. Then we tried an Izakaya and it too was full. Fortunately we pretty quickly found an almost empty Chinese restaurant where Rachel and I ordered a tofu set meal forgetting for a moment that we were in Japan and that despite the lack of mention on meat on the menu it would almost surely be in the food. So we picked bits of tofu out and rubbed off the mince and it wasn't too bad. The conversation was good and the place was warm, and pretty soon we knew we'd made a mistake leaving early as we wandered the streets in search of a bar that would fit our group of 8 and later another group of 8. Having tried 5 places we ended up walking towards a sixth, fortuitously bumping into Justin who knew of a seventh and took us there. It was the Gorilla bar (although I don't think it was actually called that) and had a big gorilla stuck on the wall outside the windows on the fifth floor. And it was like a real bar. Spacious, busy (but not too crowded), no need to order food... So we stayed until people started to leave for their last trains and the remainder of us headed to Red Moon which was busier than ever. We didn't stop too long as Julia hadn't come out and Adam and I were staying at her place, so at midnight we left with Rachel and somehow managed to not get to bed until around 3:30.
And Sunday was a 9:30 start. Adam and I headed into the city, him for Christmas shopping, me to find the hall where Nao-chan's choral group was performing. Her group, the Tsukida chorus was taking part in a competition and performed 2 songs and after them the Katsuyama chorus performed with Sunami-san from the camera shop singing, and my Junior high's music teacher conducting. It was lovely music, and it would have been good to stop longer, but we had important things to do. Nao-chan and I headed for lunch at Cannery Row (excellent value) and then to the shops, although finding a parking space was like finding a room in Bethlehem. We eventually parked by the Red-Light district, paying 100 yen per 20 minutes (!!) So we rushed off, did our shopping and headed back home.
After the intial shock and worry, I was relieved to hear that the explosions in Hemel Hempstead (London) were accidental and went back to planning the week ahead. That included ANOTHER trip to the city last night where I did a spot more Christmas shopping and headed to dinner with Fiona only to bump into Amy (now officially Amy Tan) and Herb and Julia. And eventually dragging myself away, I wove the car around the mountains to find it -4 degrees in Ochiai at 10:45pm and snowing in Katsuyama. But it stopped about 1 minute later. But it was still more snow. It had snowed all day yesterday (and not settled) and it's supposed to snow every day until Sunday. D'oh. And I still have no snow tires...
Thursday, December 08, 2005
It's gonna be a cold, cold Christmas
But thank the Lord I'm heading back to a land of central heating, oven-cooked food and Christmas shopping soon. Last weekend I finally cracked open the winter coat and scarf and today I am having the grand switch-on of the... electric heater. After sitting at Rachel's last night and feeling quite toasty without a coat on I decided that I should bite the bullet and actually use some heating indoors. This combined with the fact that as my teacher drove me to school this morning the temperature signs read as -3 degrees, has led to me using the heater for a full half hour this evening...
Monday was bloody cold too. The snow fell throughout Sunday night and on Monday morning Katsuyama was beautiful- like a scene from a Christmas card (if Christmas cards traditionally featured japanese architecture). And it snowed through Monday day appearing like it was going to settle. I had plenty of time to review the situation what with having on lessons and all...
Tuesday passed in a similar fashion, with snow replaced by sleet and an evening conversation class in a lovely warm room, and Wednesday was spent at the most fun elementary school. They did however worry me when they made their request for this week's after school conversation class- "How to meet girls and how to keep the conversation going". If they'd meant talk about haircare, fashion, film stars and recipes I'd have been fine, but the implication was otherwise. Oops... Friends suggested teaching chat-up lines but only 3 of the offered examples were appropriate, so I chickened out, told the class preparation was hard and asked them for questions and we worked from there. This led to me trying to explain English grammar points with the Japanese ability of a developmentally slow Japanese 3 year old. But they're a great group of teachers and it always becomes fun, so after goodbyes I cycled into the (near freezing) sunset to tackle washing that won't dry. The evening was spent in Kibichuo at Rachel's and today was another elementary school with an opportunity to do baking-free cookery with the kids...
And having convinced them to let me go home early (they combined my classes so I was finished at 12:20, I asked them what to do for the afternoon, they had no ideas, so I suggested I got the next train home. And Happy Christmas, they said yes!) I have been cleaning and tidying (long overdue) and preparing for orphans tomorrow...
Monday was bloody cold too. The snow fell throughout Sunday night and on Monday morning Katsuyama was beautiful- like a scene from a Christmas card (if Christmas cards traditionally featured japanese architecture). And it snowed through Monday day appearing like it was going to settle. I had plenty of time to review the situation what with having on lessons and all...
Tuesday passed in a similar fashion, with snow replaced by sleet and an evening conversation class in a lovely warm room, and Wednesday was spent at the most fun elementary school. They did however worry me when they made their request for this week's after school conversation class- "How to meet girls and how to keep the conversation going". If they'd meant talk about haircare, fashion, film stars and recipes I'd have been fine, but the implication was otherwise. Oops... Friends suggested teaching chat-up lines but only 3 of the offered examples were appropriate, so I chickened out, told the class preparation was hard and asked them for questions and we worked from there. This led to me trying to explain English grammar points with the Japanese ability of a developmentally slow Japanese 3 year old. But they're a great group of teachers and it always becomes fun, so after goodbyes I cycled into the (near freezing) sunset to tackle washing that won't dry. The evening was spent in Kibichuo at Rachel's and today was another elementary school with an opportunity to do baking-free cookery with the kids...
And having convinced them to let me go home early (they combined my classes so I was finished at 12:20, I asked them what to do for the afternoon, they had no ideas, so I suggested I got the next train home. And Happy Christmas, they said yes!) I have been cleaning and tidying (long overdue) and preparing for orphans tomorrow...
Monday, December 05, 2005
The Grand Fatigue
Eating has once again become an important theme in life here as socialising takes a step up again. The last week ended up being fairly busy with Eikaia (conversation class) on Tuesday, an AJET meeting in Soja wit Amy, Claire, Rachel and Jaco on Thursday and Amy's hen night on Friday, a second thanksgiving on Saturday and then a cocktail and fish supper at Bob's on Saturday. Add to that the usual round of choclit and ichigo daifukus and you'll understand how I've become fat again.
The AJET meeting was fun and was the first time I've been to a JoyFull since LeeJay left Japan, and thus it was time again to marvel at the low prices and the amazing drinks bar with the radio-active cancer-giving badness of the Mellon Soda. But when a drink is that green you just cannot pass up an opportunity to pour yourself a glass...
Friday saw a much more sophisticated drinks bar as we headed to Cannery Row for Amy's hen do. We almost headed to the wrong Cannery Row. I found a phone number on the internet for Ilana who booked it and when I went to check the map to give people directions it took me a while to make the switch from, "ooh, this map's wrong" to "ooh, there're two branches and we've booked the one I didn't know about". With only one casualty from the mix-up who arrived 15 minutes late we were on course for a good evening and Ilana organised lots of games and things to do.
After an unplanned long drive home and getting to bed quite late (2:30) I was looking forward to a nice long sleep only to be rudely awoken at 8am by the phone, and then became even more startled by a very enthusiast voice exclaiming, "hello! It's me! How are you?". Once I'd figured out who I am, where I was and that I was on the phone it came to me that it was RayVon from New Zealand. So we chatted and spent a great hour catching up before I had to make my excuses and get ready for Tamano. I rushed to leave at 10 to pick up Rachel at Takebe at 11 and with only one stop at a combini we were in Tamano for 1:15. Neil's Crazy Thanksgiving (unofficial title decided by me) was underway when we got there as 40 people cut, cliced, blended and mashed their way to a feast. A feast that could have fed maybe 100 people... Neil's planning was a little bit on the generous side, but it's always better to have too much than too little, and after gorging on a feast of festive food we were tidying and cleaning and making doggy bags to take away with us.
Rachel, Danielle and I headed back towards Tamano for Bob's fish and cocktail evening which became a fish and Kahlua evening as the planning went a bit awry and three bottles of Kahlua ended up on the table. But we did our best to battle through, and in ou nicest clothes we drank and talked, drank and played twister, drank and cycled to the combini in the dark and drank some more. You probably don't need me to tell you this, but cycling to combinis at night in unfimilar places on unfamiliar bikes that have no light is not a wise thing. As Bob, Adam, Betsy and I were soon to find out... Despite the fact that Adam and Betsy's bike (they were illegally sharing- ooh!) was the only one with a light, they were lagging behind me and Bob, much to our disadvantage as the streetlights became sparser and everything went black. As if inviting fate to stab me I declared in my best moany voice, "I don't like this". And followed it with a quick, "urgh!" as the front wheel slipped into a gully and threw me to the ground. On hearing my "urgh!", Bob shouted, "are you OK?" and followed it with an "urgh!" of his own as his front wheel went into the gully. And with the two of us on the floor laughing Adam and Betsy landed on the scene with a confused, "what the hell?". After a quick recovery we headed to Family Mart to discover that a) they had no Ichigo Daifuku and b) Bob had developed a Stigmata (but on his left hand only). The fall obviously brought him closer to God.
We returned to Bob's pleased with our purchases of choclit, crisps and other assorted snacks emblazened with slogans such as "good taste, good selection" which confirmed our feeling that we'd done a good job.
Sunday was a slow riser as everyone bar me and Betsy got up early. I kept waking up and falling asleep again as people did things around me and eventually the two of us rose at 10:30. After a pancake breakfast everyone headed to the onsen except for me who headed home. I sat indoors like a penny pinching pensioner with a blanket wrapped around me refusing to put the heater on and froze until I made my dinner of sashimi, followed by pasta with pumpkin, leek, mushrooms and a 600yen tuna steak fried in olive oil. Mmm. And then I decided to decorate my apartment for Christmas which now seems hugely appropriate as it snowed all night and is doing a similar blizzard-like thing right now outside the school windows...
The AJET meeting was fun and was the first time I've been to a JoyFull since LeeJay left Japan, and thus it was time again to marvel at the low prices and the amazing drinks bar with the radio-active cancer-giving badness of the Mellon Soda. But when a drink is that green you just cannot pass up an opportunity to pour yourself a glass...
Friday saw a much more sophisticated drinks bar as we headed to Cannery Row for Amy's hen do. We almost headed to the wrong Cannery Row. I found a phone number on the internet for Ilana who booked it and when I went to check the map to give people directions it took me a while to make the switch from, "ooh, this map's wrong" to "ooh, there're two branches and we've booked the one I didn't know about". With only one casualty from the mix-up who arrived 15 minutes late we were on course for a good evening and Ilana organised lots of games and things to do.
After an unplanned long drive home and getting to bed quite late (2:30) I was looking forward to a nice long sleep only to be rudely awoken at 8am by the phone, and then became even more startled by a very enthusiast voice exclaiming, "hello! It's me! How are you?". Once I'd figured out who I am, where I was and that I was on the phone it came to me that it was RayVon from New Zealand. So we chatted and spent a great hour catching up before I had to make my excuses and get ready for Tamano. I rushed to leave at 10 to pick up Rachel at Takebe at 11 and with only one stop at a combini we were in Tamano for 1:15. Neil's Crazy Thanksgiving (unofficial title decided by me) was underway when we got there as 40 people cut, cliced, blended and mashed their way to a feast. A feast that could have fed maybe 100 people... Neil's planning was a little bit on the generous side, but it's always better to have too much than too little, and after gorging on a feast of festive food we were tidying and cleaning and making doggy bags to take away with us.
Rachel, Danielle and I headed back towards Tamano for Bob's fish and cocktail evening which became a fish and Kahlua evening as the planning went a bit awry and three bottles of Kahlua ended up on the table. But we did our best to battle through, and in ou nicest clothes we drank and talked, drank and played twister, drank and cycled to the combini in the dark and drank some more. You probably don't need me to tell you this, but cycling to combinis at night in unfimilar places on unfamiliar bikes that have no light is not a wise thing. As Bob, Adam, Betsy and I were soon to find out... Despite the fact that Adam and Betsy's bike (they were illegally sharing- ooh!) was the only one with a light, they were lagging behind me and Bob, much to our disadvantage as the streetlights became sparser and everything went black. As if inviting fate to stab me I declared in my best moany voice, "I don't like this". And followed it with a quick, "urgh!" as the front wheel slipped into a gully and threw me to the ground. On hearing my "urgh!", Bob shouted, "are you OK?" and followed it with an "urgh!" of his own as his front wheel went into the gully. And with the two of us on the floor laughing Adam and Betsy landed on the scene with a confused, "what the hell?". After a quick recovery we headed to Family Mart to discover that a) they had no Ichigo Daifuku and b) Bob had developed a Stigmata (but on his left hand only). The fall obviously brought him closer to God.
We returned to Bob's pleased with our purchases of choclit, crisps and other assorted snacks emblazened with slogans such as "good taste, good selection" which confirmed our feeling that we'd done a good job.
Sunday was a slow riser as everyone bar me and Betsy got up early. I kept waking up and falling asleep again as people did things around me and eventually the two of us rose at 10:30. After a pancake breakfast everyone headed to the onsen except for me who headed home. I sat indoors like a penny pinching pensioner with a blanket wrapped around me refusing to put the heater on and froze until I made my dinner of sashimi, followed by pasta with pumpkin, leek, mushrooms and a 600yen tuna steak fried in olive oil. Mmm. And then I decided to decorate my apartment for Christmas which now seems hugely appropriate as it snowed all night and is doing a similar blizzard-like thing right now outside the school windows...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
