Shade

So Bairbre (or Barbara for those of the non-irish persuasion), a friend from Ireland, is doing the whole round the world, a "how-many-cool-countries-and-things-can-I-do" trip. And I know some people might find it funny, me being in Japan, but I'm super jealous!

And she has the coolest blog with her friends that's alway updated and full of fun crazy interesting adventures. And I always felt kinda guilty when I compared my blog to hers. And then she got a job in Australia, and we're kinda in the same boat. Its tough to talk about normal day-to-day life, no matter where you are. But it was her recent entry that inspired this one!

Someday I'm sure I'll tell you about my actual job, but at the moment work is a chore so is best left to the daily moans to Dave. But today we had a kids party!!! Unless you were talking to Honbu (head office), in which case it was a kids lesson!!

In reality, the kids spent 30 minutes in each of four rooms, being stupid and fun and crazy and not learning a whole lot of english. Two were games, one was make-an-icecream-sundae and one was make-a-pair-of-sunglasses. And since yours truly came up with the sunglasses idea, yours truly got stuck making them!!




These were the ones I made for demonstration purposes which had the kids peeing in their pants (I taught that phrase to someone recently). Obviously I looked considerably less cool than I did in my head.

It was fun, but crazy insane, I mean, insane insane.

Just so you know, whoever started the stereotype that japanese kids are all quiet and polite and sweet, should be shot!

I'm pretty strict with my regular students and it was frustrating having other students laugh at me when I said my strict 'NO'. Might have had something to do with the glasses. But it was also cool to see my normally 'challenging kids' telling the others to cut it out! And to meet lots of other kids.

Anyhoo, that was two hours of my life today ...



And an unrelated news item that made me cry ...

Trippin'

So despite the best efforts of a comfy bed, we managed to get up super early (ok so about 10.30) and headed out for a day trip.

About an hour and a half away is one of Japan's most famous Shrines, Ise Jingu. So we bought our tickets, hopped on and whiled away the hour by playing Mario Kart.

Well we thought we'd bought our tickets!

First I bought us a ticket for the wrong stop, but luckily it was the same price so it wasn't a huge deal. Then we got to the station and the machine wouldn't accept our tickets. Showed them to the attendant who proceded to ask us for our tickets. He obviously got too scared by our confused looks and told us to just go ahead.

It was only after we'd left the station that we realised that we'd only bought seats for our train journey not the tickets themselves! Damn Gaijin.

Anyhoo, constantly looking over my shoulder for the police coming to arrest the renegade foreigners we headed for the Outer Shrine, which is in the town itself. Nestled at the entrance to a sacred wood, the shrine itself is hidden from view by large walls and trees, but you can see the golden tips of the roof glinting through the trees.

Although a little unimpressed by the Outer Shrine, we hopped on a bus and headed to the Inner Shrine, deeper in the forest and set on the river. This is where most of the photos are from.

The inner shrine, again is off limits to non-royal family members, but houses one of Japan's three sacred treasures, A Sacred Mirror. But Dave and I were again reduced to craning our necks along with all the other tourist to try and get a small glimpse.

The area itself was beautiful, quiet and so peaceful despite the crowds. Quite the remedy to Saturday night's over-indulgence.

Shining

Saturday morning, 9.30, sitting on my floor surrounded by books.
Today is my crazy day. Everyones crazy day.
Start at 11, 4 classes in a row, an hour break, 4 classes in a row.
With an interview thrown in for good luck.
It's normally fine actually. The day flies through
And then its the weekend

Turned on my airconditioning.
God I love it.

Fancy?

Damn this is some humid weather here!
Oh if only I could sink my teeth into a juicy slice of watermelon.

To save you popping down your local bank for a currency conversion...
The watermelons are $20... yup! $20 thats 2 ... 0 .... 20!
And thats a cheap one! We've seen em in the $30's and heard rumours of them in their $40's