2008 here we come!

The flight back to Tokyo was bliss!

* I had three seats to myself in the middle of the plane

* I didn’t have to worry about my nerves because I drank two bottles of free wine and slept like a baby
* British Airways entertainment systems are amazing

The flight to Fukuoka was a little bumpy especially the landing as it was snowing when I got back.

Dawn was waiting for me at the airport with a car full of Costco goodies. We arrived back in Kumamoto around 9pm and being too tired to go partying around town, we opted for a quiet New Year celebration. We had Costco pizza, cheesecake, wine and a TV – what more could you ask for?!?
2008 here we come!

Time flies....

7am and I was all ready to go. The taxi pulled up, I said a sad goodbye to dad and two hours later we were there.

Of course mum couldn’t hang around so I had to say a sad goodbye to her to (so many tears in the last few weeks) and go check in.

I so enjoyed spending Christmas at home. It was just what I needed and I feel so much better. I’m ready for a new year and a new start in Japan.

* Celeb Spot – Angela Rippon at Heathrow airport!!*

Taxi for one?

The only sad thing about being home was seeing dad sick. You never think of your parents as normal human beings who can succumb to such things as illnesses. They’re your parents they’ll always be there to drive you crazy – right??

For as long as I can remember my day has been active. When he wasn’t at work he would be doing the gardening or decorating or he’d be out fishing or playing badminton. Seeing him sick and unable to walk upstairs was a big shock.

We all agreed today that he was no way strong enough for the journey to Heathrow and back and so we had to look at other ways of getting there. I said I would take the train but that would mean leaving a day earlier than planned and stayed over in London. No-one was keen on that idea so we decided to book a taxi.

Thankfully dad knows the guy that runs the taxi firm so they said it was no problem for mum to drive down too and then they would drop her home. She was so relieved and to be honest so was I!

Carrington Christmas

* Eat breakfast (more bacon)
* Prepare half the dinner (forget the other half and get shouted at later)
* Meet mother at work
* Go to the club (spend too long there)
* Wait upstairs while father gets shouted at for making a mess
* Drink champagne and pomegranate juice (the new range apparently)
* Miss the Queen’s 50th speech
* Open half of the presents
* Search desperately for mothers present that she bought for herself a few weeks ago and that I totally forgot to wrap since being here
* Open the other presents
* Eat a huge dinner complete with soup, turkey, pudding and crackers
* Fall asleep in front of the TV
* Wake up and go to bed!

The perfect family Christmas

H-A-P-P-Y

Why the last three days have been bliss (in no particular order of course)

* CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
* BRITISH PUBS
* ENGLISH BREAKFASTS - bacon
* OTHER FOOD - cheese
* FAMILY
* FAMILY FRIENDS
* OLD FACES
* MY HOUSE
* MY ROOM
* MY BED
* I finally got dad to clean the car (first time in 5 years)

Final Destination

I had arranged for a family friend to pick me up at Lichfield as mum and dad had no idea I was coming. I had been stringing dad along all evening telling him I couldn’t sleep and I needed to talk to him (he thought it was 6am in Japan and wondered why I was up so early). I told him to be online at 11pm for a web chat and so at 11pm, as I was 5 minutes from the front door, he was switching on the computer wondering what was going on.

Picture the scene: dad is upstairs waiting for me to log onto MSN, I am outside the front door and call him on my mobile.

Dad “Hello.”
Me “Hello, it’s me.”
Dad “Have you logged on yet?”
Me “No. I can’t get in the house.”
Dad “What do you mean?”
Me “Can you let me in?”
Dad “Let you in where?”
Me “Can you let me in the house. I don’t have any keys.”
Dad “Wha-, I don’t…., Wha-…”
Me “I like the snowman outside the front door by the way.”
Dad “You’re not here!!!!”
Me “LET ME IN!”

Dad is always in on surprises and he always knows what’s going on. Tonight he had no idea at all. He was so shocked! I then had to go and surprise mum who was already in bed and then we had the hugs and tears…..

Two hours and a lot of talking later there were three empty wine bottles on the table and we all trudged bleary eyed to bed.

It’s Christmas – I’m home!

ARGH!!!!!

This is the last time I book a last minute Christmas flight to the UK. Everything was going fine until we landed in Heathrow!

* We were 45 minutes late landing
* We had to sit on the runway for 45 minutes because there was nowhere for us to go
* Only those with connecting flights were allowed off first
* I had to wait 45 minutes for my luggage as they decided to put 3 flights worth of cases on one carousel – genius!
* The underground train I got on was suspended after 3 stops

After leaving myself nearly 4 hours between my flight arrival time and my train to Lichfield I was gutted to arrive at Euston station 20 minutes after my train left! I got no sympathy and had to buy a new ticket finally arriving in Lichfield just before 11pm after 30 hours of travelling.

Where would I be without them?!?!

Noe and I left my apartment at 3:30am as she kindly offered to take me to Fukuoka airport. It is a 4 hour round trip and she had to go to work after driving all that way!!

Thanks Noe and Bunny Boy!

After 2 1/2 years I finally flew to Tokyo and caught a glimpse of Mt. Fuji.

I think this is going to be a great trip home!

Life's Too Short

I’m going home for Christmas! After much debate I have decided that it I the only way to get me out of the funk (only word I can describe it with) I have been in all month. Christmas is always the hardest time to be away but after the plans to go to Thailand fell through I didn’t make any other solid plans and so why not??

I feel bad about leaving dawn in the lurch but she understands and knows I need to go. I searched the net and made a few calls and found a last minute BA flight. Luckily it’s only 50 pound more than the flight in August!

As soon as I’d booked the flight I was told I had 24 hours to pay which was fine but then I got a call 15 minutes later saying to secure the seat I only had 1 hour to pay!! Dawn and I made a mad rush to the bank to make the payment and it went through with 10 minutes to spare.

I was only home during the summer but that was a very hectic visit and I do miss Christmas at home. Now that I know I’m going I actually feel a lot better. I have no time to panic about getting on the plane as I have to start packing!

You can't fake it...

My house is all ready for Christmas! The decorations are up including my first ever black Christmas tree complete with PG monkey on top! The presents are waiting to be opened, the Christmas CD is in the player and there’s only 9 days to go.

But…..it doesn’t feel like Christmas.
I’m down……..I miss home……

Michan's Gyozas

Michan is like a mum. She loves to fuss and spoil her favorite people and when she sets her mind to it she really goes all out to do it. This time she decided to throw a gyoza party. (Gyozas are a kind of small meat dumpling.) They are very popular in Japan and despite her wanting to have a party entirely of gyoza; Michan doesn’t like them so much!

I dread to think how much time she actually spent making them or how many were actually made. Every time I went to her apartment the week of the party there seemed to be trays of gyoza everywhere!

Needless to say she outdid herself and we had gyoza, rice balls, tamago-yaki (egg roll) and miso soup!

Seeing as it is nearly Christmas we also decided to have a Criss Cringle. Everyone had to spend 1000 yen on a present (about 5 pound) and after dinner we drew pieces of paper out of Christmas hats to decide who would choose first. The rules were simple – you could choose to open an unopened gift or steal a present that had already been opened. A gift could only be stolen three times!

I got to choose second and opened a present to find a Starbucks gift voucher inside. Dawn quickly stole that from me so I got to choose another one which had chocolates and a moose pen from Canada – perfect!

The Criss Cringle was good fun and I think most people got gifts that suited them in the end. With the drinks still flowing even though it was getting late the night descended into much drunken antics including drunken twister and a few compromising situations involving Minika’s souvenir from the sex museum in Beppu.

Sometimes you just feel.......

OUCH!

I am recovering from last night!

The Japanese word for hangover is 二日酔い (futsukayoi)

It literally means "two days drunk"

futsu kaYOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII indeed!

Mid Year Madness

It is Mid-year seminar time again and seeing as it my first time attending the conference as a senior high school ALT; I sat back and watched while others presented. We listened, discussed problems, and came up with ideas to make our lives as ALT’s run a little smoother. Here’s a picture of us hard at work…..

Well maybe not but at least the hats were free!

Seeing as the conference brings all of the ALT’s in Kumamoto prefecture together it is usually a good excuse for a night on the town. This year AJET organized a fantastic party and the whole gang was there to eat, drink and get very merry! See I did my hair, wore nice clothes and made such an effort to be a lady!

There was also a raffle and I have been dreaming about this raffle all week. In my dream I won the ipod shuffle but in reality I won a bottle of champagne (not bad either way!) I tried to make in to Sanctuary to dance the rest of the night away but I lasted about 10 minutes before Minika put me in a taxi and sent me home!

This photo was taken about 5 hours after the previous one! Hair and appearance not so good, definately not much of a lady and probably couldn't have told you my name!

Xmas Tree Wish Hands - Fun For All!

Proof that the Christmas Tree hands work at any school with any students. Just get them to draw around their hands, write what they want for Christmas and decorate the other side. Then paste the hands onto card in the shape of a tree – they love it!

My first graders are off to Tokyo this week for a school trip. I told them to bring me a present back and they laughed - you never know one of them just might!

JLPT - Level 4 - Take 2!

After only 3 hours sleep I had to be up at 6am to take an early train to Fukuoka. All across Japan, foreigners are taking early morning trains, buses and subways to various JLPT test sites. Yes it’s test time again! I was disappointed not to pass last year and I failed by such a small amount which made it more annoying.

There were a lot of familiar faces as the test is popular and many ALT’s take it. The test itself wasn’t bad but the listening test was trickier than the previous years and the harder questions towards the end (where I usually start as those are the ones I understand) were also harder than the past papers I tried.

As soon as the test was over I felt sick. I think my body had been waiting to give out but thankfully it lasted until the JLPT was over. After a long, uncomfortable train ride home I dosed up on hot lemon and went to my happy place – bed!

First Class Service

After all that work Minika and I had lunch in town. Ramen is very popular in Japan and is especially good on a cold day. Ramen is a huge bowl of noodles, mixed with a meat based broth topped with meat and vegetables. That’s the very basic description as you can get lots of different kinds.

To show your appreciation for this delicious food you are supposed to eat ramen very noisily making lots of slurping noises. I haven’t quite got this down yet but I’m practicing!

One thing that always amazes me about this country is the level of service you receive and their attention to detail. I have never seen this in a restaurant before but it’s just one example of how far their service goes. Because there is a lot of broth in a ramen bowl, those with long hair might find eating it tricky so they GIVE OUT FREE HAIR BANDS at the restaurant!

I am going to miss service like this when I leave Japan!

Saturday School

As part of the extra curricular activities at school the second graders had extra Saturday classes. All of the second grade teachers (plus me) were asked to come up with an 80 minute class and the student would then choose a class to attend.

Because I only usually teach the kids from class 2-7 I didn’t want English to be the focus of my lesson and I finally got to try an activity I’ve been itching to do since I got here.

When I was in high school and at university I played “The International Trade Game”. It’s a team building game focusing on communication and I know that it is used in Economic theory and a lot of companies also use it as part of their training schemes.

Here is the basic idea. Teams are competing against each other to draw and cut out shapes. Each shape is worth a certain amount of money. The team that makes the most money wins. Very simple!

But then you hand out the materials and things go crazy.
Team A has pencils, scissors but no paper.
Team B has one pencil, one pair of scissors and four sheets of paper.
Team C has twenty sheets of paper.
Now they realize they have to trade materials and work together!!

After they have been playing for about 15 minutes you can also throw in a few extra things i.e. if everyone is making triangles then you drop the reward for triangles. I also had extra scissors and pencils which I sold for ridiculous prices to encourage team work between the groups and I offered small rewards for small shapes to see if groups would use up the paper they were wasting.

After letting them make shapes for about 40 minutes I stopped the game and the teams counted their money to find the winner. I wanted to explain in detail about the game and so Minika came along to translate for me as I’m sure some of the explanations would’ve been too difficult in English.

Here is what it’s all about. The game reflects the world markets. Team A represents developed countries like America with lots of technology but scarce natural resources. Team B represents countries with a bit of both and Team C represents third world countries.

The prices of the shapes are determined by supply and demand just like a real market which is why the prices change and I introduced the smaller shapes to make the students think about waste. Most groups decided it was too much effort to make small shapes and chased the big money – just like in real life!
The students enjoyed the game and seemed interested in the discussions. Having played the game at home I was interested to see how Japanese students would play the game and if there would be any major differences – there were!

* Japanese students are nice! Team C should realize how valuable paper is and charge a lot of money for it. I was charging $1000 for one sheet so they could’ve easily charged $500. At home they did but in Japan they were nice and gave it away!
* At home scissors are valuable as you need to cut out the shapes. In Japan the kids are such expert paper folders and tear-ers that they could tear the paper and it looked so neat. We let it slide for the first class but not for the second!
* In most cases Team B wins because they start out with a little of everything and get a good head start. However Team A won the first class in Japan!
* In a bullying tactic (ironic as it was Team A – America) some of the girls found a novel use for the waste paper and started writing out free massage and free golf lesson tickets in return for paper!

I thoroughly enjoyed playing the game and thanks to Minika for being my little helper! I can’t wait to do it again next year!