burnt

Bondi beach is pretty sweet,
the waves are high so you must watch your feet,
my dad rented an umbrella,
he's a careful fella,
Neither me nor my brother were as clever.

 How did we act that was so idiotic?
 We forgot about sun exposure in the exotic.
 Despite my avid application of sun cream,
The sun got me hard like a strong lazor beam.
 But strangely only got me in one place,
Now try to keep a straight face,
For it was just on the back of my knees,
 I ask of you not to laugh at me please.

 However, what Joe did was much more severe,
 the stupidity of this deserves a cheer.
 He went for a swim in the heavy seas all alone,
 and forgot that his pocket contained his phone.
 It was a brand new iphone 5,
 but now it is ruined from his lone dive.

 It may sound like there has been some distress, on the contrary I must confess.

 It was all shits and giggles. So there.

Sydney

Once my sister has uploaded some pictorials from this holiday onto the book of face or emailed them to me like some stone age wench I will then fill this space with little descriptions and whatnots in an attempt to remind myself of all that takes place in my life.lets not leave anything blank now.  A blog like this is really good if your worried about getting one of those memory altering illnesses or take a bad fall and bump your head and your memory gets erased like in that movie. Weird if it happens to me in the future and the only thing I have to remember my life by was a blog from some time I spent in Japan.  If your thinking "well that's stupid because there's the whole of Facebook which back logs loads of random stuff and interactions or whatever... As well as all your photos and physical artifacts"; Please keep in mind that I'm obviously referring to the fact that that stuff might all be destroyed in the cyber space wars of 2031-37. Durrrr.

I got to pick an outfit out for joe:

Finally...Lucy's last night

Smelt like this:

I know it's weird that she wasn't in the pictures- but you must remember that she's the only one with a camera.

More tellings of a trip named Lucy

Here's some more tiiingz:

One night we stayed at Robbie's in hitachi-ota. Daniel had his friend staying from home called "Ron" (on the right). Robbie is in the middle and Daniel is on the right. Exhibit A:

Zara and Riley decided to go back earlier and sleep as we were tired. Unfortunately we were woken in the middle of the night. The image below portrays where I was sleeping on a futon but unfortunately became suddenly buried underneath tommy and Daniel who threw themselves onto me. Robbie is looking confused.

Here they are proud of having disturbed my slumber. I am actually trapped like a 3rd class passenger on the titanic in this picture, but it is almost impossible to detect this with the naked eye:

I took Lucy to the beach in my town:

I also took her to this shrine I found that is on a big hill overlooking the sea. I found it one day when I was driving around. True story.

I attempted planking but I don't think it's something I'm going to get into a habit of:

Okonomiyaki

I went for okonomiyaki with people from my japanese language class as an end of term Xmas feast. 

That big light sort of ruined the picture but it was hard to get everyone In without it.

I didn't wanna say anything but I found a hair in mine. 

Holidays

My bro and pa arrived in Tokyo on Friday. I travelled down and met them after work. We spent a couple days in Tokyo. On Sunday we flew to Sydney. Now I'm in Australia. thank you for your interest. Merry smushmas. 

the never ending story a girl called lucy stayed and here was the second weekend of her loooooooooong visit

Friday night we went back to that god-forsaken beer point place where if you are bored enough to have read the majority of my blog posts you might think that I spend time in very few other places. well....you wouldnt not be wrong.

This was followed by some karaoke:

So there you have it. Apparently this went on until the wee hours of the morning. Clearly I had given up at some point and had decided to use the karaoke room for napping purposes. Well - we all enjoy karaoke in our own unique way. Some of us like to scream down the microphone some like to sleep. Its really something for all to enjoy.

the continuing tale of Lucys visit mid-week happenings

Before I start, I might mention that I have just discovered Gladys Knight & The Pips and it is GREAT. What else happened while Lucy was here eh? Well, yes, we got an Indian. As it turns out, Indian food in Japan is seriously great:

Yummy naan. The guy let us watch him make it. dunno why. Mid-week we went to the Mito drunk duck and caught up with some chummy chum chums. Evidence of this is directly below THIS TEXT.

oh yes, there was also the incident of the yaki-niku where we got yaki-niku. thats that for you. And because you so clearly are lacking of an imagination I have included a photograph of this meal - its your typical no-frills yaki-niku spread:

send in the clown

the "feel sorry for myself" nature of the following blog post is a direct result of me feeling ill today. I am sick of being the subject of ridicule in this school. I am a joke to these people. Yes, I might act like a clown for the most part. But I dont always feel like being laughed at. 

I already feel left out with the obvious language/culture/ethnicity difference. I am the only non-japanese person who works at all 4 schools. Of course I seek a lot of comfort in my other ALT friends who experience the exact same thing at their respective schools. In fact we even have an ongoing online chat group where we regularly discuss the weird things we encounter day-to-day and make plans for our free time. This is our daily reminder that we do belong, we have a community. Anyway, it all started a few weeks ago when a really annoying woman working for a newspaper subscription company came to my apartment and caught me just as I was about to rush off somewhere. Long-story short, there was a lot of misunderstanding due to our inability to communicate and she wouldn't leave until I signed a stupid contract for a newspaper subscription starting in the new year. What a forceful annoying woman. I have learnt not to ever open my door to people I dont know now - everytime ive had to commit myself to something I didnt want or need - like this other woman who made me complete a housing survey. Why people bother me with this nonesense when I clearly dont speak the language is neither here nor there. 

Back to this morning, I found that damn contract and thought I would face the music. Of course, if I was capable of doing things for myself I would just take care of these matters alone. Because I cant speak Japanese, I have to go through the school. Therefore everyone knows my business. I knew everyone in the office would laugh over the newspaper subscription thing. Thats why I didnt bother dealing with it for a whole month - but as Im going away next week I thought I should get it sorted before i forget. So I was laughed at as always. When I get laughed at like that, its like "oh, stupid foreign girl, never knows what shes doing and always gets things wrong". Ok, yes, I'll admit everyones incredibly helpful and understanding- but its still humiliating damn it. 

 Because of being distracted by this matter this morning, I forgot to sign up for a bento box today - so by 11 I suddenly realised I hadnt ordered a lunch. How annoying. So I had to buy lunch at the little school shop for the students like a shmuck. Of course when I went down there at first it was closed. So I had to ask a teacher in the office about when it opened. Again - I get laughed at because people have clocked into the fact I've forgotten to buy lunch. Meh. 

Its not just the teachers. When I walked into my second graders class today I got an uproar entrance. They think im a joke - so they welcome me like one. OK, I know this means im popular with the students - but I wasnt in the mood for it. I get this weird applause like an animal coming out to perform circus tricks. Im 100% certain that none go the other teachers at this school get an entrace like that. In fact some of the teachers find it funny and make me walk into the classroom first just to watch it happen. After my class, as I was walking back to the office, a group of girls going the opposite direction down the school steps said "hello" to me I said "hello" back - naturally the girls were beside themselves. They giggled wildly and ran off yelling "kawaii" .....oh just get over it already.

Apple Onsen

I took a trip up to the onsen in Daigo - a town in northern Ibaraki. I went with 3 boys which meant that I had to go to the onsen alone. It was me and a whole load of naked Japanese ladies. odd situation to find yourself in. 

 The onsen in Daigo is great - its in this really old-fashioned area with traditional japanese architecture and a beautiful mountainous landscape, all pretty and green. There were 3 outdoor pools to choose from - one of them was filled with roses, one filled with apples and one overlooking a forest. I rotated between them all. They also had a sauna - I love saunas. It was so luxurious and nice, I got a loyalty stamp card which im hoping to slowly fill up over my time here. 

 Im currently sat in the office of my Monday school. Its monday morning and people are rushing around getting ready for the start of the week. I am surrounded by grunting, sniffing sighing and general Japnese people office noises that make me shudder with discomfort when im feeling too sleepy to be here. I need a few hours on a Monday morning to make me feel settled again into work and my weekly routine. I think I'd rather be back at the onsen.

Lucys trip day 3

I took Lucy into Tokyo for the first time. I must say that im a terrible tour guide - I know nothing about tokyo - I have very little sense of direction as it is, and Tokyo is 10 times more confusing that London. long story short, we did see some stuff, but mostly got lost - while looking for nothing in particular. Lucy saw local Japanese spiders for the first time

Harajuku as always:

who are these cool dudes?:

whats a fine creature like you doing in a place like this?:

FYI Topshop IS in Tokyo:

We found a nice posh little cafe where Lucy paid WAY too much money for a cup of tea (like 500Y/ 4 pounds) which she accidentally drowned in milk. OUCH.

They had a Ben and Jerrys place in Shinjuku where I got a cup of my favourite ice cream of all time, peanut-butter yummmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyy:

I also discovered that a Max Brehner is coming to Tokyo YESSSSSSSSSs:

We eventually took the train back to Katsuta and went for a Kaihten Zushi (conveyor belt sushi meal):

When we got home Tom Hanks was on a Japanese game show trying Japanese food:

According to the subtitles he is saying "totally delicious" but seeing as they were feeding him natto, I think he was lying. Sorry Tom, your acting skills do not deceive me.

Lucys trip day 2

On the Sunday we went to the Ibaraki University festival where all the students set up little stalls selling food. theres also some stages with performaces and loads of other random stuff going on. Tommy and Daniel:

I found a chocolate covered banana and it was amazing:

Some sport team initiation went past, this suddenly reminded me of being at Kent:

Arent we all just so cute? from left to right, riley, me, yukiko and Lucy:

There was A LOT of break dancing:

Lucy and I then went for dinner with some chums at a soba restaurant. We played some word games and generally just unwound with some beers after a day of walking around.

me and lucy entangled:

Freddy........and cage (cant remember french guy in the middles name at this present moment:

After the meal, Lucy and I took the bus back to Mito station, we were discussing how we would take it easy and chill the next day.... blablabla, until at Mito station we bumped into Dyar and Daniel who asked us if we would like to go on an impromptu trip down to Tokyo. hmmm... I had daikyuu (day off) the next day, and Lucy was there, so we were like OK!! We picked up some road beers and Dyar drove us down to Moriya (where he lives). Dyar lives very close to Tokyo - so the plan was to get back to his (about midnight) and then head into tokyo early the next morning. Heres Daniel in the car on the way down:

Before heading to his apartment, Dyar decided that we should stop by his local shrine to pay our respects: