Day 45 in Japan - Isogashii!! (means busy)

What a busy day I had today - had three classes in a row, and then a one period gap (and lunch), and then my first SCIENCE class! Doesn't sound that full on, but I had to do all of my lesson prep for the last science lesson in the little breaks, have three meetings with teachers, and sort some of the bills I am supposed to pay.

Today there is a typhoon warning - there will be a typhoon in Kyushu tonight and we will get some really strong winds and lots of rain. The strong winds started today, and there were actually 2 windows that got blown in at our school - one in the staffroom, and another in one of the third year student homerooms (while the students were in there - one of them got broken glass all over him but didn't get hurt). If there is a typhoon warning tomorrow, class will be called off. Which prompted the following conversation:

JTE: There is a typhoon warning. Classes may be cancelled tomorrow, because it is too dangerous for students to come to school

Me: How will I know if I should stay at home?

JTE: Hmmmm, I think you should come to school anyway. You should stay at your desk if there is no one else here.

Lucky me! I hope that the weather isn't too bad, because I basically have to ride my bike through it regardless.

This is the cow shed in the middle of Okubo!
It's like finding a milk shed next to the mall in Wollongong.

Tonight, I brought about 400 papers home to mark! It was much nicer sitting on the floor at home listening to music while marking than ruining my shoulder trying to mark at my desk. After the marking, Sam and I went and did our Tuesday night Japanese study. This time we hit up Cafe Gusto rather than Starbucks - Cafe Gusto has a "drink bar", so we could get never-ending drinks for only a few hundred yen. We also had dinner there - caesar salad for me, and a fried chicken and prawn concoction (with corn, or course) for Sam. I am getting a little better at the kanji - I think I know about 90 or so. I am starting to be able to recognise them more easly around me. Oh, and I made Sam detour to take some photos of my cow shed, and to go late night shopping at a discount supermarket. I am REALLY tired and feel a bit worn out tonight, but I am glad that I still went and did some study. 

Sam with cow shed on the left, and the Coke factory on the right.

Food Highlight of the Day: Dessert at Cafe Gusto was a "pichi youguretto sando" - or a Peach Yoghurt Sandwich. There was peach and yoghurt, but there was no hint of sando - it was just a delicious yoghurt, peach and ice cream dessert. It was like having dessert at my grandma's house (I mean Grandma Mary for my family).

Day 44 in Japan - Hi, my name is...

I taught 4 classes today, and boy are my arms tired. But seriously, how do I do this every day? I'm buggered! I stayed an hour-and-a-bit longer than I was supposed to, because I'm just so busy with lesson planning and speech contest preparation. And the bus only comes once an hour and it was too hot to walk to the station.

My "first day of school" photo from this morning.
Note the nervous face.

The first lesson was with my third year class - they are noisy but pretty nice. I will get to see them fairly often (twice a week), so it's good to have at least one class that I will get to know the names of. I see the first year classes at Akashi Shimizu once per week, and I only see my first year classes at Akashi Kita once per fortnight, so I don't think I'll be able to remember many names. I had three classes in a row today, and then a break for lunch, and then another class, a "volunteer" class (for my least-favourite teacher), then speech practise with a kid who hasn't actually finished his speech yet, then worksheet making and lesson planning, and then finally HOME! Big day.

My crowded bus on the way to school.
BEFORE IT GOT CROWDED.

On the way home, I saw the first of the rice crops around Uozumi starting to be harvested! They had a cool machine for it, but it made me a bit sad, because it means that the beautiful green fields that I look at out of the train window will now be browning off, and eventually turning back into patches of bare dirt. I am starting to see a few changes in my surroundings even in only 40 days - buildings going up, flowers changing, rice crops being harvested, and all kinds of things that point out to me that time is passing. It will be interesting to go through a whole year cycle and look at the things around me. I guess it's no more interesting that it would have been at home, but I think I took it for granted at home and never really pay attention. Here the changes really stand out because everything is so new, I think.

Another friendly neighbourhood spider.
This one is near Shimizu High School, and
after I took this photo, the wind blew
 him into my camera and he freaked out.
Sorry, Spider.

Sam went and got my bike fixed today - it was 1200 yen for the new inner tube and labour. The old couple who run the bike shop had a ball talking to him, and even called their daughter to get her to say hello to him, because she spoke good English.

We actually cooked a little bit Japanese-style today, in that we made quite a few different dishes and had small amounts of each of them for dinner. We had: gyoza, rice, egg, stir-fried vegetables and bok choy. Not too bad for us amateurs.

Dinner, Bri-and-Sam-style (not pictured: rice)

I went for a jog tonight - about 3 km. It took me about 20-25 mins with a few bits of walking. I didn't get out of breath at all - just felt a bit sick because I didn't leave long enough between eating and running. I'm pretty happy, because my route also let me find a new conveyor belt sushi place right near us! Which may have defeated the purpose of the jog. Hmmmm. Oh, and I have been sitting here laughing at some of the pictures of Dad that the kids have drawn on my self-introduction worksheet - I leave an empty box for the kids who finish answering the questions earlier to draw a picture of Dad. I have included some of the awesome results below:

And my personal favourite...

BAD ASS DAD!!!!!!

Food Highlight of the Day: In my bento lunch box for school, I had a potato cream croquette. "Croquette" here means anything mushed up, crumbed and deep fried, so my lunch included mashed potato, which was rolled in more carbs and then deep fried to crunchy perfection. Now you can understand the jog, right?

Day 43 in Japan - There's No Shopping Like Outlet Shopping...

HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO ALL THE FATHERS! (And to all a good night)

First Vegemite toast in Japan <3

Spent ALL MORNING updating my blog - I had lots of half-written posts, but it was time to turn dot points (mostly) into sentences. With Vegemite toast, thanks to the box that Mum sent with Andrew - thanks so much to all involved in supplying me with breakfast. Sam had a HUGE sleep in, and when I finally got him awake it was time to head into Tarumi to meet some of the local Australians for lunch and shopping.

Arjun, Jonathon and Jodie, excellent shopping buddies.

Sam and Graham, talking Objective C programming (really)

Jodie (from W.A.), Arjun (from W.A.), Jonathon (from New York) and Sam and I all met up at the station, and then walked down to an outlet mall, Marine Pia Kobe (I think that they meant to call it Marine Pier? Who knows?). We waited around for another JET, Graham (from W.A.) who was stuck in Kobe, and went to lunch. Today's lunch was brought to us courtesy of Gaylord Indian Restaurant, and it was surprisingly good Indian food! We had a "setto" - the Japanese word for set meal. We got pumpkin soup, 2 types of chicken tikka, salad, rice, a curry and a lassi for 1500 yen. Not cheap, but probably better value than Melbourne! After lunch, we went to "Cold Stone" Ice Creamery. It was almost exactly the same as Cold Rock Ice Creamery at home, with one small difference. All of the staff sing songs together when they are doing the ice cream mashing. When we ordered, six of them lined up and sang that song from Sister Act. You know, the Aaaaave, Aaaaave Aaaave Regina song (apparently called Salve Regina?). But it obviously has different lyrics in Japanese, because they were smiling and doing actions and it sounded very Disney.

Dinner and a show.

We hit up a bunch of sporting shops to find larger shoes for Jonathon and Arjun. Nike, New Balance, Adidas etc. Also went to the Crocs store and a LEGO STORE. Yes, I said Lego store. They had all of these fantastic Minifig key rings, and I am definitely going back to score myself one of those. I'll take a few orders if people want anything (note: they had all manner of Star Wars ones! Click picture to zoom in. ADMIRAL ACKBAR, LIAM! ADMIRAL ACKBAR!)

DO WANT.

Lego store - I'll be back. And in greater numbers.

When we walked out of the Lego store to head home, the real appeal of the shopping centre became obvious. There was a beautiful view of the Akashi Awaji Bridge (the longest central span suspension bridge in the world) and we sat on a wall in the sun and watched the sun get lower in the sky for a little while. It was a beautiful view. The water underneath the bridge was really savage - it was so rough, and the currents were really strong and fast. It would be a really scary thing to fall into that water right under the bridge, but there is a beach right nearby with a fairly peaceful little swimming area.

Summer skies over Akashi Kaikyo Bridge

Savage currents looking over towards Awaji Island

The Akashi Kaikyo Bridge between Akashi (my city) and Awaji Island.

We all parted ways, and then Sam and I headed home for a Father's Day Skype-a-palooza. Talked to Leo and Jess, Kath and Mick, Lovey, Mum and Dad, and Fletch! Phew! Good times. We heard about the huge winds and roofs blowing off at home, and I'm glad Dad had a good Father's Day wielding and axe to deal with the trees that had fallen down at Werri Beach.

Akashi Kaikyo Bridge (one last shot)

Food Highlight of the Day: It's a tough call to split it between the Indian for lunch, and the post-lunch ice cream, but I'm going to go with... the ICE CREAM! I had one called "Say Cheese!" - cheesecake ice cream with chocolate sauce and fresh strawberries mixed through it. Perfect for a hot summer Sunday afternoon.

Day 42 in Japan - Recovery

It's been a big few weeks. Today, I decided that I just needed to do some washing, clean the house, shop, clean and get on top of things again. So of course, that was about 2 hours of the day, and then I spent the rest of it watching Dr Who! (Oh my God, Season 3 is great! Why did I never watch Dr Who before now?)

The breakfast of champions.

Sam cooked up a nice bacon-and-egg breakfast while I Skyped with Fletch and then Mum and Dad for hours. It was good to have a nice long talk without having to worry about getting to bed, or preparing for tomorrow's work. It was also Mum and Dad's 34th wedding anniversary, so it was good to be able to wish them happy anniversary face to face (almost).

Sam's nemesis - the Kumo (Japanese for spider). We have
about 5 or 6 of these right outside our front door. I think they just laid eggs.

We had a really big house clean - it was good for us both to just focus on making things shiny for a little while. Afterwards, we rewarded ourselves with an episode of Dr Who, but realised we had no snacks! So we went for a quick shufti to the supermarket to buy some lunch and one savoury and one sweet snack each. I got caesar salad and Crunky Nude balls (HA!), and Sam got a karaage pancake/burger thing (folded pancake filled with fried chicken, lettuce and mayo - quite spectacular) and a kind of triangle-shaped pastry filled with a layer of cream and a layer of custard. He chose... wisely.

Some of the manhole covers that you see in Akashi.

Most of the rest of the day was Dr Who, really. We went from Martha to Donna as companion. I have to say, I love Donna as a companion. It's nice to have a break from the romantic tension of Rose and Martha and a bit of comedic relief is always welcome.

Today is 5 years since grandpa died, so I called to talk to Lovey (my grandma) and then got a relatively early night. Beautiful and relaxing day.

Food Highlight of the Day: Today's highlight is a bit of a food fail. MILO! Milo in Japan doesn't stay granular, but rather it all dissolves in the milk (like Quick, for Australians). You can't have delicious chunks floating around, which makes me a sad panda. But you can still eat it from the packet with a spoon and it tastes about the same, so I guess I'll just have to do that from now on.

Day 41 in Japan - Hello, my name is Brianna

Today were my first 3 classes at AK - kids definitely much higher level academically than the kids at my visit school. Payed much more attention, and we did get to finish the lesson. I love the parts where they try to guess things about my me and my family - they think my favourite food should be kangaroo or pizza, and they think Mum is a science or maths teacher. The classes really take on the characters of the teachers as well - it is interesting to see the differences, even with these classes which are all full of the best kids. I was pretty happy with my self-intros, but after 4 classes I am wondering how I am going to make it through saying the same thing 25 times.

It's so hot up in the classrooms! After 2 classes in a row, I came back to the staffroom and sculled 1 L of water! They aren't air-conditioned or heated, so while they are boiling hot now, they will be freezing cold in winter. The poor kids have to spend all day in them, at least I can return to the air-conditioned staffroom between classes.

After my 3 morning classes, I started marking - 400 papers to grade! Got 1/3 of way through in about 2 hours. Then surprise conversation session with a keen third year - she's very nice, and will come to talk to me each week to practise her English. Crazy little overachiever (she reminds me of me). 

After school, Sam and I hopped on a (slightly too late) train to Sannomiya to meet Wendy and Dan. Went to a delicious pizza restaurant that Dan found (WITH HIS IPHONE - sooooooooon it will be mine), and then went and had some beers int he Belgian Beer Restaurant. It was a brilliant night, and I am really glad we got the chance to hang out with those two. Had such a good time that we forgot the original purpose of the trip - to go to Muji and buy some sheets. Oh well, good excuse to go and do it next time. Stopped in for an on-the-way-home  Maccas cheeseburger and Shaka Shaka chicken on the way home. Shaka shaka chicken is like a palm-sized bit of breast chicken, battered and deep-fried. They give it to you in a little bag with a "powder" of your choice (cheese, black pepper or something else that I already forgot). You shakka shakka (shake) it up in the bag, and then eat the powder-coated chicken. Sam got black pepper powder and it was really delicious! It's on the 100 yen menu (like the dollar menu in the US), so I think that Sam has found his new favourite drunken food in Japan.

Late-night on-way-home Maccas is exactly the same as in
Australia. With Shakka Shakka chicken.

Oh, and almost forgot - while in the Belgian Beer place, a table of other foreigners sat down next to us, and I realised one of the was wearing a Millipore shirt - I asked if they worked for Millipore, and they did. They eventually handed over some buisness cards, and two of the guys were the head of the neurosciences division (my homies), and the HEAD OF THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION MARKETING AND TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT. Wow, the people you meet! I told the guy who is based in Japan that I'd need a job in a year, and he told me to email him. Hmmmm, don't think he meant it, but I'm keeping that card anyway.

This is what all trains after 9 pm are like here - they are packed! 

Food Highlight of the Day: PIZZA! Delicious, wood-fired, Italian-style pizza. No corn, no mayonnaise and no sweet soy sauce in sight. Brilliant restaurant find on Dan's part. 

Day 40 in Japan - First class!

Today I am really tired, so I will have my first dot point laziness.

Waiting for the bus at Shimizu.

The rice paddies are starting to change from green to brown.

- Was at Shimizu HS, my visit school
- Bus craziness on the way there - really packed small bus, kept packing more people on. There was one poor high school student who was in a wheelchair, and a lot of the other commuters rolled their eyes and were openly hostile towards her difference and the fact that she needed more room and help to get up the stairs. It mad me really sad.
- I HAD MY FIRST CLASS! They were a bunch of 23 third year students (17-18 year olds). They were reasonably interested, but talked and were a little hard to control. Only got half way through the plans. Eeeek! That's OK for this group, because I will see them twice a week, and they are my only third years, so we can just do the rest of the lesson on Monday, but doesn't bode well for the first year classes, which I definitely only have 1 week with.
- Rest of day was planning lessons for the third year "English and Culture" class with the lovely teacher - she is the most interested in lesson planning I have met so far, and actually wants to work on classes together! Makes me feel like these classes will be a bit fun, unlike the first year classes at Shimizu, which I am dreading.
- On the way home from the train station, I saw a bunch of students from Akashi Kita (my main school) riding back to the train station. Their eyes almost popped out of the head when they saw me outside of school. There was a lot of riding past me on their bikes, and then calling out HELLO when they remembered the word, or thought that it meant I wouldn't talk back to them.
- We had dinner in Akashi with Johnna's (my predecessor - the girl who did the job here before I did) friend from Awaji Island. Her name is Lana, and she laughs like the Nanny. She is lovely and relaxed and speaks brilliant Japanese (seriously, she was studying for JLPT level 1 - and doing a translation course!). She is a second year, and a nice counterpoint to most of us first years - we all run around like we have timers over our heads trying to fit in all of the sightseeing, drinking, talking and visiting we can, while Lana is happy to spend a week just watching TV if that's what she wants to do. She was really calm and lovely, so I hope I get to meet her again.

The rice is almost ready to harvest - summer
is over (although the heat is still here).

Food Highlight of the day: HAS to be grate-your-own-wasabi from the zaru soba (cold buckwheat noodle) place we went to for dinner. It was cool - they gave you the wasabi root and a little special grater, and you could go to town! Afterwards you got to keep your leftover wasabi in a little bag to take home.

Day 39 in Japan - Opening Ceremony!!!!!!

I was so nervous I cried when I woke up this morning. Sam took me to school and it felt like a first day of kindergarten or something.
The kids had homeroom and then cleaning first period - cleaning really helped to get my mind off the upcoming speech. It was nice to just focus on sweeping and wiping down desks in my English room. But the cleaning meant I was very sweaty when I got to the gym for the BIG OPENING CEREMONY OF THE SCHOOL!

All of the students cleaned in the first period - it was
amazingly efficient. No bludging or whingeing. WHAT?

The students had to sit on the floor for most of the hour ceremony, but they had to stand up for first bits. They had a school song that they sang fairly enthusiastically. I had to give a speech to the whole 1200 students - first in English and then in Japanese. The speech went OK - the transcript (in English) was:

Hello everybody,

I am Brianna Thompson, and I am from Australia. In Australia, people call me Bri, but now I know that in Japan, Bri is a fish. So my name in Japan is Anna - please call me Anna.

I am from Wollongong and Melbourne in Australia. Wollongong is a city the same size as Akashi, so I feel like Akashi is my home already.

I hope that you will say hello to me when you see me!

I like swimming, photography, kendo, eating and sleeping so please talk to me about those things if you would like, or just say hello!

Thankyou for listening. I hope that we can have a good year together! 

I had to give the speech in front of THIS MANY STUDENTS!

After my speech, a poor student had to get up and welcome me in English on behalf of all of the students. There were a few talks from the student welfare people, the principal and the vice-principal, and then the principal gave out a bunch of awards to students who had done well in stuff over summer. My school has a great weightlifting club (with tiny girls who can lift twice their weight!), and an awesome brass band. But one thing that I DIDN'T know was that we have one student who went to the Yo-yo World Championships in the US over the summer AND WON. We have the Yo-yo World Champion at our school. I tried to Youtube him, and I think I found his winning performance, but I have to check with one of the other teachers at school. He's so cool - he has funky hair and he's even a celebrity with the other teacher. At the end of the ceremony, there were uniform checks, where the students got in trouble for having hair colour other than black (even if their natural hair colour isn't black, they have to dye it to black for this school), hair styles that were slightly different from the others, pierced ears, no undershirt, undershirts with patterns on them, or basically for having any uniqueness about them at all. There is no way I would have passed that check, so I stood quietly in the corner, trying to brush my non-black hair over my earring and cover my foot tattoo with my other foot.

Everyone has to have the same coloured hair, shirts, EVERYTHING!

Uniform checks to check for... uniformity.

After the ceremony, I had temporary celebrity status around school - almost every group of students I walked past did as I asked and said "Hello!" to me, and then scurried away giggling. The girls think I'm cute (which is hilarious), and I heard the Japanese word for boobs more than once as I walked past groups of boys (but I feigned ignorance as to what the word mean).

I spent more of the afternoon doing some more cleaning in the classroom (English wall is all done - see the photo below), having last-minute meetings with the teachers about Friday's lessons and looking at baby photos from Adam and Mel.

Wall o' English. Finally complete (enough)

My classroom (guest appearance from Yokoi-sensei)

I got my first punctured tyre on the way home this afternoon, and spent an hour or so trying and failing to repair it. I think the puncture was too big for the little repair kit we have here, so I will have to get a whole new inner tube. I can't figure out how to get the wheel off my bike (plastic covers and weird nut/bolt things), so I'll have to go to a bike repair shop. Damn. After that fail, we had a bit of a pick-me-up in the form of a Skype call to Sam's mum and dad. It was our first call to a phone (it's so nice and cheap) from Skype, and our first go at Skype-ing on the iPad. A much better note to end the night on. First real self-intro classes at my visit school tomorrow - I am SO NERVOUS. Although I feel a bit better after my speech went well today, so hopefully I won't cry in the morning.

Food highlight of the day: Omiyage brought back from Nagano by Takasumi-sensei - cheesecake, but don't be fooled as I was, they mean cake flavored with a little bit of cheese flavoring. Like eating very faintly Parmesan-y sponge cake. Actually pretty good, but a bit odd.