Year 4 - Bring It On!

I am officially ready for the new term at school. I bought a new mattress so I get a good nights sleep before work. I also bought a brand new red bike seeing as the brakes on the old one don’t work. I can’t wait to show it off!

As a treat before school Dawn and I went to the cinema tonight to watch The Dark Knight. I was sure that people were only talking up Heath ledger’s performance because of his untimely death. I am happy to admit I was wrong and he played such a dark, disturbing, evil Joker that it took me a long time to fall asleep. For those that haven’t seen it yet – go!

Welcome To Kumamoto

I can’t believe that this is my fourth BOE Welcome Party in Japan.

After our final meeting today, where we officially received our new contracts for the next year, everyone went home to get ready for the party.

As usual the official party was a huge success with food and drink readily available. The second party was at karaoke and even our bosses came to see what all the fuss was about. This is me and one of my supervisors - Hideo!

A great time was had by all and I have many drunken pictures to prove it (you know where to find them!)

Long Time No See!

Two high school friends are currently doing an amazing world tour. Luckily for me they had time to do a tour of Japan and find time to come to Kumamoto for a few days.

While I was saying bye to Micchan, Beth and Esther had a great day on Sakurajima and, seeing as tonight was their last night, I got a few people together for a farewell dinner. It was a great time to try Kumamoto specials such as raw horsemeat and lotus roots.

I hope they enjoyed their trip and I know they still have an amazing trip ahead of them. Have fun girls!

The Last Goodbye :(

I went down to Kagoshima today to say a final farewell to Micchan.
It was always going to be sad but we passed a good few hours talking about the last few weeks and what we had missed.

We had time for a ride on the ferris wheel, purikura, a good lunch and a tearful goodbye.

I can’t explain how said I am to have said goodbye to my best friend and possibly the closest thing to a sister I’ll ever know. It was sad to say goodbye and the rest of my time in Japan, whether short or long, won’t be the same.

But it’s not all bad – I still have to visit her in SF – that will be a good reunion!

Toryo Camp - The Last Day!

On the last day of camp we always have a skit contest. This year we had less ALT’s and so the groups were bigger. I had nine girls in my group and they had to come up with an idea, write a script and perform it.

On the first night no one was willing to tell me their ideas in English so I gave them 15 minutes “Japanese time” to get their ideas together. It was a good plan and as soon as I called them all back, they had decided to perform “Cinderella”.

We then split into two groups and one half wrote the script in Japanese, while the others translated it. We were about half-way through when we heard another group was also doing Cinderella. We knew we had to make ours different and so we came up with the idea of getting the prince to fall in love with Cinderella’s smelly feet. Instead of finding the girl whose foot fit the shoe, he would go around smelling people’s feet until he found the one!

I was so proud of my group; they worked really hard, wrote a great script and practiced every day. My personal favourite part of the script was the magic fairy who leapt on stage singing (to the tune of Avril Lavinge’s “Girlfriend”)

“Hey! Hey! You! You! Why are you crying?

No way! No way! Let’s go to the party!”

Their hard work paid off as we won first place in the contest!! They were shocked but obviously very happy.

Before long the speeches were over, bags were waiting to be loaded onto the coach and camp was finished for another year. There was just time for lunch and 1001 photo opportunities. I hope to see you next year Toryo!

Toryo Camp - The Fun!

After working hard during the speeches and workshops, the kids were allowed down to the beach for a few hours play time. After a rather scary “lets blindfold someone, give them a big stick and try to get them to smash a watermelon” game, we all jumped in the sea and splashed away to our hearts content.

The last night of camp is always the best as we have the music show. First we had the band consisting of Austin, one of the English teachers and other musicians (one of whom flew all the way from Tokyo.) They did a whole set included Japanese songs and golden oldies from the Beatles and Eric Clapton.

Then it was the kids turn. First the boys got up and sang a J-pop song. Then the girls busted out Avril Lavinge. Needless to say the crowd didn’t stay in their seats too long and we were all very hot and sweaty after jumping up and down for two hours.


p.s. this isn't me!!

After all that excitement it was bed time for the kiddies but the ALT party had just started. One of the best part about camps is meeting up with the other high school ALT’s who we don’t see very often and playing oh so silly drinking games!

Toryo Camp - The Workshops

I just arrived home after spending 3 days at English Camp with Toryo high school. I had so much fun at “cabbage camp” last year that I had to come back (we nicknamed it cabbage camp as they serve cabbage at every meal.)

There was no night-time “scare the hell out of the kids as they walk around a pitch black trail” activity this year but we had fun anyway. I was working with the first years again so we had a one minute speech contest and then on the second day I prepared a typhoon workshop where the students had to try and keep an English conversation going with each other after being given a topic card.

It was the first time I have used this idea and it worked really well because each time they had to do it, they all got better.

First round – topic “sports”

What sports do you like?
I like tennis. How about you?
I like volleyball.

Then I reminded them that the idea was to keep the conversation going as long as possible and I gave them hints about connecting topics.

Final round – topic “sports”

What sports do you like?
I like tennis. How about you?
I like volleyball.
My mother likes volleyball. She watches it everyday.
Oh really? My father likes baseball.
How many people are in your family?
There are 5; me, my mother, father, brother and sister. How about you?
There are 6 in my family; me, my mother, father, 2 brothers and my sister.
My mother makes my lunch everyday. She works hard.
What is your favourite lunch?
I like curry and rice.
Me too! I wish I could eat curry and rice everyday.

You get the idea!

Pollution!

After staring at my suitcases for two days I finally decided to unpack yesterday. I used the tried and trusted method of emptying everything out onto the floor so you have to do it all in one go; this works best for me!

Today was my first day back at work but we had nothing special to do and I was still battling jetlag so I headed home as soon as I could. I felt sick all morning and realized it was probably from the air as I had slept most of the weekend and hadn’t really gone outside. After the fresh, sea air of Hawaii, the busy, smoky city air was a big shock to my system.

Back to Japan

After all that fishing excitement we were treated to Chinese takeaway for our last meal in Hawaii. The whole family was there (11 in total) and we squeezed around the table, talking noisily and eating fast. It was a great feeling.

Once we’d said all our goodbyes and everyone had fallen asleep (including Dawn) I finished packing our bags so we were ready to leave at 4:30am.

The cases were overweight and my pre-flight panic had set in which didn’t mix well as we were both so sad about leaving. Everything has seemed so familiar over the last two weeks and I have really felt at home. I love Japan but I’m starting to realize that being a foreigner there means you will never really be accepted as one of them. That is a hard thing to take especially when I have been in Hawaii for two weeks and I’m already an auntie to three girls.

Twenty hours later it was midnight in Japan and we arrived home at my house. It was so quiet. After spending two weeks in a busy, noisy, family house, my apartment felt very empty and quiet. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I knew Minika wasn’t here and I couldn’t go and drink tea with her and tell her all about my trip. This is going to be a hard year!

The one that got away!

I had no idea that the best day of our trip would be the last day. Dawn’s dad offered to take us out on his fishing boat! I have wanted to go out in it since the first time we visited and I was so excited to get the chance.

Excitement quickly turned to nerves on the morning of our voyage (yes I’m being dramatic but I was so excited.) We drove the boat to the harbour, Dawn’s mum backed us into the water and we were off. Bumping along the waves was great and I was in for a real treat as the porpoises came to swim alongside the boat too.

Once we’d caught our bait (which was big enough in itself) we then had to drive around trying to tempt the big fish. This was the worst part of the day as my sea-sickness started. Dawn and I spent about half an hour feeling rough but once we’d thrown up we were much better!
I could waffle on for a long time about this day as I really enjoyed it but to cut a long story short after about an hour of driving around we finally had a bite. Dawn’s dad obviously had to do everything as we were like tourists and I was too excited about seeing him catch a big fish to be much use.

After a while the fish finally broke the surface in its attempt to break free. I was so excited to see that it was a marlin but as I looked at the others, their expressions showed slight panic. It turned out that instead of catching a 100-200kg fish (which is what we’d been hoping for) we’d landed one more like 500-600kg!! It was longer than our boat and way too much work for dad to land by himself. Even if he had managed, it was too big for the boat so we’d had to have dragged it back to shore in the water which, I was told, could attract the sharks!

We were over an hour into the “fight for the fish” now and it was time to call people to come and help. Dawn’s dad had a friend who wasn’t too far away and he agreed to come help us land the fish. It was an odd experience as I was too excited to comprehend just how big the fish was whereas the other two knew just how hard it would be and were secretly hoping we lost it.

In the end it was two against one and it was a blessing when the fish managed to wriggle free and get away. We’d already been out for 4 hours by this point so we decided to call it a day. I think I have overtaken my dad now in the race for the best “the one that got away” story!

Aloha!

The last 12 days have been bliss. I knew that this holiday would be about Dawn spending time with her family which translated into two-weeks of relaxing, swimming, sleeping, eating and generally being taken care of like we were at a five-star hotel.

Please check out the pictures
http://public.fotki.com/supergenki/august-2008--aloha-/hawaii/

Some of the highlights of the trip have been

* waking up to a home cooked breakfast
* helping the kids with their homework
* watching TV I can understand
* watching the Olympics and cheering for 4 different teams
* the beauty of Hawaii
* painting Easter eggs
* doing my first ever Easter egg hunt
* sitting down to a family dinner with up to 11 people every night
* eating fresh mangoes from the tree
* seeing the Bodies exhibit (not as bad as I imagined!)
* Jamba Juice
* swimming in the sea
* eating and enjoying cooked fish
* eating real corned beef – not the canned kind
* guava juice
* the prices in America – so cheap
* visiting Pearl Harbor
* seeing traditional crafts made right before my eyes
* grandma – see video!