Day 129 in Japan - Last Kita Class!

It has snuck up on me, but today is the end of my regular OC1 classes at Akashi Kita! I still have a lot of marking, correcting, replying, exam-making and bits-and-pieces to do before I can call it the end of the school year, but now that I don't have so many classes, I am convinced that I will actually be able to pull it all off now :)

The last class was really good, too - they are a clever and enthusiastic bunch, and wrote really good answers about what they would like to be in the future. And they didn't rip my occupation cards, unlike almost all of the other classes (yes, particuarly you, 1-9!)

Last SSH class - have been teaching them chemistry, and had a surprisingly fun lesson considering it was on atomic number, atomic mass and using the periodic table. I feel like a scientist again!

Then had a night of watching 30 Rock, updating my CV, and trying to keep warm. It is nudging down to zero overnight just north of here now, so I decided to skip my jogs until I stop coughing stuff up.

Food Highlight of the Day: Tim Tam Slams with Milo.

Day 128 in Japan - Catching up on the drudgery

Today was the day that the getting back into the swing of our normal life without visitors started. Back to boring old school, back to Japanese study, back to chores and cooking and shopping and downloading. I was planning on going to the doctor this afternoon, but I really felt a lot better, and thought that 2 hours of rest, rather than sitting in a waiting room full of other infectious people, might be more beneficial in the long run.

A stormy day at Akashi Shimizu

It actually felt quite good to sink my teeth into Japanese study again - I finished off the first CLAIR book, and most of the first test. And I am actually glad to have a bit of a break from "visitor" eating. I think I have put on 5 kg in the last 3 weeks. Actually, that's a lie - I KNOW I have put on 5 kg in the last 3 weeks (why did my bloody predecessor have to invest in scales?). So I am happy to have a month of being able to be totally in control of what I eat, and not feel guilty about depriving a visitor of a delicious meal opportunity by just having a vegetable stir fry for dinner.

Caught up on the latest TV shows that we had missed (well, downloaded a bunch of Community, Family Guy and American Dad), and started to cleaning and rearranging process. Updated iPad and iPhone (finally!), and started reading the Harry Potter books again (I'm starting at Book 5, because I know the first 4 too well to revisit right now). All up, had a nice productive, relaxing, quiet night of staying warm and looking after myself. Heaven :D

Food Highlight of the Day: HUUUUGE pudding that Sam brought home from work with him. It was really delicious, too! And it looked really cool when we turned it out onto the plate. I appreciate the irony of writing this below all the "waaah, visitors made me eat bad" above.

Day 127 in Japan - The Deathly Hallows #2

Slept in so hard - didn't get up until 10:30am! This is quite an achievement for me and I'm proud of it. Got up to go and meet with Jodie and Fiona, who came out to Okubo today to see Harry Potter with us :D

I love hanging out with Jodes and Fiona (and I'm not just saying that because Fiona has read my blog before). They are an absolutely lovely pair of people, and it was awesome to have someone to talk about Harry Potter with. Although it annoyed me that Sam wouldn't leave us alone so we couldn't talk about the upcoming events. The movie was absolutely grand to watch a second time (slightly more in focus this time around, too), and the Godiva chocolate drinks and GIANT popcorns didn't hurt the experience wither (although not to readers - in Japan, a REGULAR popcorn is more than enough. Don't go bigger!). Walked them around Okubo a little to show them the area (to try to entice them back for future movie viewings :P), and then showed them our place. For some reason, I was a little nervous to show other "Japan people" our house, particularly in the state it was in. But of course, they were very nice, and didn't comment on the empty packet of corn chips next to the bed (damn/bless you 7-11 on the way home from the train station). After a bit of chatting they headed off to their respective Sunday night preparations.

We decided to have another quiet night in, in order to try to throw off the colds we have as quickly as possible, and it was the perfect opportunity to finally watch a movie I have been looking forward to for months - Scott Pilgrim vs. the World! This never got released in Japan, so we didn't have the opportunity to watch it before now (we still had to illegally download it in order to see it at all, but we will totally buy the DVD whenever we can, I promise). It was a really cool movie, as everyone else in the world already knows. It was sweet, without being saccharine; cool without trying too hard, and unpredictable without being nonsensical. All with plenty of nerdy game references for Sam and I. Yay! Still managed a nice early night to rest up and be fighting fit for the week ahead.

Our night of peace amidst the chaos of our house.

Food Highlight of the Day: Buttery, salty, GIGANTIC popcorn bucket for the movies. Sam and I didn't think we'd get through the whole thing but we did.

Day 126 in Japan - Bye Bye, Anna!

Sam had to get up and get going fairly early for work, so we all got up and Anna finished her packing and checking fairly early. We were saving up our hungriness for a big last breakfast, and when she was all done, we traipsed down to downtown Okubo for some breakfast crepes!

After our fortifying breakfast, Anna and I went for a bike ride down to the beach to show her the coast of the inland sea, and to make sure she'd be nice and tired for her overnight flight. I went the right way almost straight away (almost), and we were soon heading along the bike path along the shore in Akashi. We were really lucky - the air was just about as clear as I have seen it here, and we could see all the way down Awaji. I think we could even see Shikoku! We got all the way down to Moomin and Papa's to show Anna the awesome aquarium toilet (if you don't know what I'm talking about, see here) - it's about an hour bike ride from the Okubo shops. We sat and talked about science, and our careers and watched a guy trying our his new skim board thing while eating the best garlic and cheese toasts I have had in Japan. Then we turned our weary bike handles homewards for a last look around the Okubo shops (and Saizeriya) before grabbing Anna's stuff and getting her onto a train to Kobe.

After I dropped her onto the airport bus at Sannomiya, the cold that I've been trying to ignore for the last few days demanded it's toll, so I went home, changed into my pyjamas and sat on the couch and looked at the chaos that is our house after 3 weeks of visitors. Ahhh, it'll wait until tomorrow.

Food Highlight of the Day: The smoked cheese toast from Moomin and Papa's.

Day 125 in Japan - Anna's Last Night in Town

Almost last classes at Kita - went brilliantly. Less pressure me to pull everything together (by removing the need to produce lesson plans for next week) means that I feel more relaxed in the classrooms, which means the classes felt really nice today.

After school, the ESS club made our Christmas decorations for the LL room, but I had to skip out early (still 5:30 - an hour and a half past my finishing time), because I was meating (ha!) Anna and Sam in Kobe for some KOBE BEEF!

Sam got a free mask and the flu.

Got to Sanno and heard about their brilliant day exploring Kobe by bus and foot. They really enjoyed Chinatown by the sounds of it, and I was totally jealous. We headed along to our (now) regular Kobe Beef place - Steakland. We even got the same chef guy that we have gotten several times before. It was a delicious dinner, and I think that Anna enjoyed the steak about as much as Dad did (although she didn't make comments anywhere near as crude afterwards).

We then trained it back to Okubo  (leaving Sam for an emergency toilet stop at Akashi along the way), because for Anna's last hurrah we wanted to take her to karaoke. But with the spare half hour we had, we also managed to fit in a trip to Baskin Robins icecreamery, and got ourselves some delicious (and in Sam's case, brightly-coloured) sundaes. Then we embarked on our 2 hour epic karaoke journey. It was more epic than usual due to Sam and I have really sore throats before even starting to sing, and it got interesting am hour in when we lost it totally. We tried a few more Japanese songs this time - "Ue o muite arukō" (better known in English as Sukiyaki, although it's much nicer in Japanese, and title literally translates to "I Will Walk Looking Upwards"), the theme song from Evangelion ("Cruel Angel's Thesis", or " Zankoku na Tenshi no Tēze"), and the main theme from Princess Mononoke. Anna really enjoyed herself, and there were more than a few rock poses and embarrassing photo poses struck.

Two hours of karaoke was all that my throat could handle, so we called it a relatively early night for a karaoke night, and were home and in bed by 1 am.

Food Highlight of the Day: The mushrooms at the Kobe Beef place were particularly spectacular. They cook up butter and oil with dried garlic chips, then cook seasoned enoki mushrooms in the garlicky oil. So delicious!

Day 124 in Japan - The Biggest of Boys

Nothing very exciting happened at school. Except that I got a tart made specially for me by class 1-5. Yeah, baked personally for me "ALT".

After school, I took Anna for some steak! And what better place to go than our local Big Boy? We had a really good dinner, a really good chat, and a really good night.

Food Highlight of the Day: The salad you can see up in that photo there.

Day 123 in Japan - Okubo with Anna

A busy day at work - I was too busy to plan ESS, so at the last minute, I downloaded "A Whole New World" from the iTunes store (was literally downloading on my walk to the classroom), printed out the lyrics to the song and a few sheets for the students to translate to words into Japanese. It actually ended up being fun, but it was all so unroganised! After the main club, I practised the recitation speech with Chihiro - she has been so good with her practise and she's so sweet.

Then I raced on my bike down to the Vivre to meet Anna. I wandered for a bit and we played phone tag for a while until we managed to find each other and do some shopping. We had this enormous slab of chiffon cake (surprising smooth and velvety, although not exactly strong-tasting) for afternoon tea, Saizeriya for dinner, and even managed to fit in a crepe for dessert. Delicious.

Hmmm.

They are selling a HEDGEHOG in our local pet store.

My new key chain toy.

Le chiffon cake.

I walked my bike all the way home, and was very proud of myself for not kicking my legs into the pedals like I normally do. Until the last 5 metres, when I did it twice, giving myself a huge egg on each of my shins. SO CLOSE!

Food Highlight of the day: My bite of Sam's carbonara chicken McDonalds burger - was more odd than good.

Day 122 in Japan - Thanks giving for LABOR (Public Holiday, not Political Statement)

Today was a PUBLIC HOLIDAY! I had completely forgotten until just before bed last night, and I was thrilled to realise that it meant a sleep in! I have been a little lacking in the sleeping stakes at the moment, and combining that with the cold that I have managed to pick up, it was nice to close my eyes again after 7! We eased ourselves int the day with leftover spaghetti sauce on toast for breakfast, and a spot of watching Japanese kids TV shows.

When we finally convinced ourselves it was time to do something productive, we headed out towards Himeji to show Anna the castle and the great city itself. Well, the decent city itself.

After a pretty spectacular bakery lunch, we walked towards the castle, only to realise that there were markets on today, and got ourselves lost there for a little while. I picked up some 1000 yen blue cons, Sam almost got talked into buying some old Japanese weaponry, and we got given pretty fox face flowers by a lovely lady who was keen to explain them to us (I thought that they were fruit, but apparently is we bury them they will regrow sometime?)

Then we walked through the little park to the south-west of the main keep, and then into the castle grounds themselves. We were a little hesitant to pay the entry price, as all of the castle is covered with scaffolding, and the keep is closed to the public, but boy were we glad we did! After I used my terrible Japanese to try to ask an innocent passerby what the signs nearby meant (there was a little mini-even on there today), a volunteer guide took pity on us (or the innocent passerbys) and gave us a guided tour around the complex. His name was Inoue-sama (the sama was my addition - it means that I greatly respect and humble myself to him), I am pretty sure he's going to be the next big Kansai comedian! He had his little bits of patter for all around the castle, and made some fantastic wife and samurai jokes. He absolutely made our day for us. But even if we hadn't had him, we chose a good day to come to the castle - there were people running around in lots of ninja, samurai and princess costumes that were happy to take photos with us all around the place. We really felt lucky to have gotten such a nice day (with so few other people) at Himeji Castle.

On the slow trip back to the station, we detoured to play with some autumn leaves in the street, eat donuts and wander down the shopping strips that run parallel to the main street between Himeji staiton and Himeji Castle.

Autumn rules!

Mario and Luigi?

Wonder Twin Power... activate!

The shopping mall in Himeji all decorated for Christmas.

When we got home, we had another onigiri night with our leftover ingredients, and spent a whole night playing "Who is Hot" - rating various famous people on their attractiveness. A very, very fruitful public holiday :)

Food highlight of day: The crazy strawberry spiral thing I had for lunch - it was filled with strawberry yoghurt flavoured goo that it was so pink (modelled by Sam, below)

Day 121 in Japan - A Garfield-esque Monday

On my bike ride to Shimizu this morning, I seemed to see everyone. I ran into about 30 students from Akashi kita, to various gasps of surprise muffled by scarves. I even saaw my principal from Akashi kita riding past me to work! The order of the classes at Shimizu was all stuffed around so as soon as I walked in the door I had to rush to my first class still puffed from bike ride.

Was all psyched for a good day today, and that lasted through my first two classes but the third sapped my will to live. Got through to lunch without losing it and then locked myself in the classroom and had a few moment of quiet contemplation. Those were my only 5 mins alone for the day. Ahhh, Shimizu. At least you are consistently soul-destroying. The rest of the day was very busy and very boring.

I rode home in the rain, but at least with Anna visiting there is someone to come home to! It's nice to see a light on when you walk into the house. We chatted and cooked up a storm - we made spaghetti bolognese and ate cheesecake while Sam was at work. We kept chatting after he got home (at 9:30), and before I knew it, it was 1 am! Oops!

Food Highlight of the Day: The bolognese sauce that Anna and I made was no Dad-quality, but it was warm and filling and a good antidote to an ordinary day.

Day 120 in Japan - A Sad and Happy Day (Happy Birthday and Goodbye)

The happy part of today was that it was Sam's birthday. The sad part was that Mum and Dad left Japan today.

We had a really easy breakfast and an easy day of packing and preparations for their travels. We had a few expeditions from the house through the day - to buy Sam some cakes for morning tea, and to buy ingredients for the great lunchtime onigiri cookup. We cooked a LOT of rice, prepared bacon, capsicum, cheese balls, pork, chicken, tuna, mayo, wasabi, spring onions, and probably something else I am forgetting, and put it all on the table for everyone to prepare their own lunch onigiris. I think everyone like the Japanese version of the sandwich, and we even headed to the Daiso (hyakuen store) later to pick up some onigiri makers for Mum and Anna.

Sam's birthday cake, stamped with the date!

Off to the hyakuen store

Sam with his Mario chocolate birthday present.

After the hyakuen visit, Mum and Dad chucked the last bits in their bags, said their goodbyes to Anna, and then the four of us (Mum, Dad, Sam and I) started the journey to get Mum and Dad onto their plane. They will have had a very multi-mode trip home by the time they get there! We caught the train to Sannomiya, the Portliner train to Kobe airport, a shuttle bus to the High-speed Ferry station, then they caught the ferry across to Osaka airport, a bus to the terminal, a plane to Brisbane, stay the night, another plane home, then Lousie was picking them up from the airport in a car. Talk about Planes, Train and Automobiles. I think skidoo was the only mode of trainsport they aren't up for in the next day or so.

Last photo together :'(

Going...

Going...

Gone.

Anyway, we said our teary (on my part) goodbye at the Kobe Airport Ferry Terminal, and Sam and I waved at the boat until we couldn't figure out which light was theirs as they headed across the harbour. Sam called his Mum and Dad while we were on our trip home (and we had a really lovely view of Kobe from the front seats of the Portliner - a lovely way to come into the city at night!), and then we got to stand in the front window of the JR train home, so we watched the rain start to beat down on the front window as we sped home.We met Anna at the station to introduce her to the delights of Saizeriya for dinner (mmmm, fake Italian!) and had night which was probably too early for a birthday, because we were all quite tired. Happy Birthday, Sam!

Christmas lights in Sannomiya (can you find the birthday boy?)

Sannomiya station Christmas lights.

Food Highlight of the Day: Swiss roll birthday cake for morning tea.