Christmas holiday part 1

Ok so maybe just maybe it's been a little too long since I updated my blog. I apologize. To noone in particular, but anyways. :P So right now I'm on the bus back from Hiseko Ski Resort, Hokkaido (Japan obviously), heading towards Chiseko airport in Sapporo after an awesome 4 day skiing holiday. Yes, that's right, I was skiing. No, sorry, nothing broken. Just many tired muscle groups (there seem to be an awful lot of those weird things in my body now... muscle groups... strange stuff), a few tired and twisted joints, etc., and a smile on my face. I'm happy to report I can now stand upright and move down an incline on skis. Without falling. Too much. :D Whether or not we call what I can do “skiing” is another story...

We (a friend and I) arrived on Tuesday after a pleasant flight from Kobe airport. 2 hours flying to Chiseko airport, and 4 hours bus ride to Niseko ski resort later, we were there. At last. :D The site was just amazing to me!! So much snow!!! I must have driven all the people on the bus mad with all my excited cries of glee of “Look! More snow!!!” (And when the entire landscape is covered in snow, believe me there's room enough for much excitedness! We stopped after about 1h30min on the bus at a nice roadside center with restrooms, restaurants, and touristy things. I wasn't interested. My eyes saw only mountains and mountains of snow (not to mention mountains with snow). I could have probably been left for a few days playing in the snow, stomping in this heap, blowing over that one, dancing circles around yet another one... I had never seen so much snow in one place in my life! So much fun!!! Sadly we only had a 15 minute break, so I had to eventually get back in the bus... I should have fought them off – I'm sure I could have taken them... there were only what? 15 of them? Pfff easy...

Anyways...

And then we checked into Hotel J First. Very fancy (how do you spell lany / larny / lawny / laanie / I give up). We managed to get all the way to our room and have a quick look around before we busted out our laptops and connected to the wireless internet. Had a chat to some friends and family on skype before we decided to move on. We headed straight over to the lift and bus pass stall and exchanged our coupons from the travel agency for our passes, then went and collected our skis, poles and boots from the rental place. Luckily it wasn't just me at the rental shop, as it turned out the skis needed adjusting. I would never have known that... 2 flat bits of wood on my feet, 2 spiky poles in my hands, and big plastic snowproof boots on my feet were all that I went in looking for...

After that we finally hit the ski slope. Well lets just say my first attempts were... er... slow. And I think a certain friend with a huge amount of patience was quite well tested :P But I eventually managed to pizza-slice my way down the hill (my stance resembled a triangular pizza slice in that my toes were permanently welded together to keep from moving at any speed beyond snail-pace, while my heels were going elsewhere. I wasn't always quite sure where they wanted to go...). From time to time I switched to something healthier, and looked a little more like tossed salad, but I always managed to get up in the end. Eventually. Sometimes with only minor assistance from aforementioned patient parties.

And then I discovered that we had actually only done half the hill, and that the top half was even steeper than the last. Sigh. Romans pizza should hire me... I was eventually able to stay upright and not wedge my toes together permanently, which I felt was quite an achievement.

Of course later that evening when I was managing to move down the nice beginners hill quite easily (you go down the same hill that many times, and I'd like to see you not know how to...). So it was decided I should try something a little more challenging... not that I was too happy with that, but I gave in thinking it couldn't be that bad. Yeah, I know, you already know what's coming, but wait... We found a ski lift that seemed (nice word that eh? Seemed...) to go to the top of quite a nice little slope with a mildly steep slope and a lot of room at the sides to mess up. So we got on the cable car and went up to the top of that hill. And then went up some more. And then some. And after that... well we were both kind of wondering how long it would be until we could hear the harps playing... The higher parts of the lift had been hidden in misty snowy stuff, so it was impossible to tell from where we had been how high the lift really went, but by the time we got there it seemed obvious this was not meant to be a particularly easy run... Well I がんばりましたd as much as I could (gave it my best shot basically), but after about the 50th time of panicking and landing on my backside, I decided enough was enough and I was going to walk the rest of the way. Only to have a guy ski up behind us to tell us that he was the last person on the hill checking to see that everyone finished, as the lights were going off soon. :(

The snowmobile ride was fun, but the siren was a little embarrassing...

Dinner was really good, and the おんせん (hot water bath (onsen)) was also quite welcome, but I feel I should mention that WOW that thing is hot! Hehehe. Oh, and the massage chair afterwards was awesome. :D

Skyped some more people afterwards when we were back in the room, and went to bed around 12:00ish. I'll save the next few days for the next (few) post(s), as I've already written so much...

Another post that I wrote ages ago and forgot to post. Sigh.

So it seems tomorrow is going to be a super busy day... 6 periods, then hitting 三宮 tomorrow night (as always). Me thinks I'll leave the laptop at home for a change, as I'm not going to get any chance to use it! Oh well, sorry my pretty...

So today I had one of the ninensei teachers say something about me in the staff room, and he could tell by my face that I hadn't understood a word... so he tried saying it a different way, and I still didn't understand... Until finally he says in beautiful English “We all want Greg.” Well I must say that's quite the proposition... all of them?? I mean, I know I'm popular and what-not, but I mean really! :) Luckily one of my JTEs was around to explain that last night, they had to do some rescheduling for my sake, and it was very difficult because so many of the teachers needed me in their classes. Nice to know I'm needed ( / wanted).

I got some emails typed this morning which is good. Also got back on track with my cellphone emailing – it's been far too long since I sent out random “have a nice day” morning emails. Got quite a few responses back though, so obviously they've missed me. :D Will make an effort to make up for it in the next two weeks, before everyone disappears for holidays all over the world (literally!). It was nice knowing you, thumbs...

But seriously though, it dawned on me today that after my Christmas holiday, it's going to be very quiet in Kobe... SO MANY people are going away for quite extended holidays. I think I'll go type up a mass email to find out what people's holiday plans are, so I know who I can hang out with when I'm back. :D

Good idea... Oh and I just thought of an awesome idea for my kids and myself as well. Hooray! :D

Ok the day has just ended (well classes anyways) so I'm going to stop for now. :)

Catching up

At long last I return with another blog post!! Hooray! :D So as can be imagined, I've had plenty of things to do recently... I'll see if I can summarize some of the highlights, lowlights and green lights. I like green. At least today anyways.

This last weekend we had Sarah's birthday party, but it didn't go very well for me... I had dinner with my JTE in harbourland from 19:00 until 21:00, and then went straight from there to U-para (the awesomest arcade ever!) to wait for the Sarah party to arrive. After EVENTUALLY finding it... (with much mumbling and cursing under the breath while I couldn't find it) I went in and plugged in my laptop at the internet cafe bit (forgot to mention... I went straight from school to my JTE's dinner, and straight from there to U-para, so still had all my school stuff with me) and chatted on Skype forever. All throughout my playing on the internet, I tried to phone / email everyone (and I really do mean everyone :P ) to find out what time they were coming... For some reason noone wanted to answer (avoiding me??), so by the time I finally got hold of someone, I discovered they were already in U-para! And then of course 30min after I found them out, most of them left. Sigh. So it was a bit of a sad party for me.

On the plus side, I got home before 01:00, and slept so well it was wonderful!

Saturday I went through to Sanno with a friend, and we had a good wonder around the shops. I bought lots of new clothes (which of course I just had to wear on Sunday...), and 4 manga books (the first volume of Naruto, Bleach, Evangelion and Full Metal Alchemist) and other random stuff (I think anyways). And of course part 1 of my new DS (if you're wondering what “part 1” is, ask me – I don't really want to publish it here...). Can you say “やた！！！”

(Half of you probably can't. Haha :P My suggestion? Look it up, or go learn some Japanese :D)

By 16:00 though I still hadn't written my story for the Thanksgiving dinner / erotic story dessert in Hanayama that was starting at 16:30, so I started to nip a little. We went off to a Starbucks where I wrote my little story quickly (nothing to sordid, I promise...) and then rushed off to Hanayama.

On the train there, I bumped into (literally – the guy lost his balance) some random foreigners on the train, so we started chatting. I saved them from missing their stop, so they were very grateful (I helped people find their way in Japan... they really must have been useless :P ).

I got to Hanayama a little late, but it seems I wasn't the only one at least, so there's some consolation. It seems the JET idea of punctuality is catching up with me... (and here I thought I was escaping African time by coming to Japan. Sigh).

There were masses of people at the party, which was really great. Got to chat to lots of friends. The story reading was also really really funny, with the funniest story read by the most dramatic person at the party... sadly I didn't win any prizes, but then the winners were pretty outstanding pieces of work, so I'm not too worried. And I must say I don't think I'll ever look at turkeys the same way again... turkey basting... shudder...

Sunday I did very little, with a little bit of shopping inbetween. Sunday night went to Sannomiya with a friend to do some shopping / touring, and had a good time. Had a good wonder down the teeny tiny alleyway-type-things underneath the JR line, and saw all sorts of interesting bits and pieces.

Lunch time has just finished, and now I have to periods to sit through doing very little, waiting for the end of the day. I can't wait to go home today! Will see if there's any work I can get done while I wait.

I'm pretty sure I'll have lots more to write the next time I post as well, but I'm just tired of typing for now. Just one more random thought before I'm done... The Japanese really shouldn't disguise red-bean paste doughnuts as chocolate doughnuts... It's not a very nice thing to do :P

I typed this blog ages ago, but forgot to post it! ごめん!

Oh my... my voice is currently being broadcasted throughout the first floor... the whole staff room is listening to me saying “I have two pianos in South Africa.” Oh shoot me now. Such a weird feeling...

We're on day two of exams now. I'm glad the students torture is almost over. Aaaaargh there's my voice again!! Anyways, where was I... OMW!!! I just went outside... it's broadcasting to the whole neighbourhood!!! Aaaaaaargh!!!!!!!

OK let's try get back on track... So the students are writing their last exams today, and I thought that would be the end of my uselessness at school. But no... It seems I'm not doing any classes this week at all! So weird. At least tomorrow I can attend classes with the teachers, but I won't actually be doing anything. I'm going to talk to my JTEs today though about my classes next week – I'd like to have a week of halloween themed classes as it seems they really love the holiday – weird for me as I'm not really used to doing anything about halloween. Should be interesting... Anybody have ideas for cool activities I could do with them? :D

I'm on the bus with my laptop! Woot! Sorry just had to say that :D

Brindley day!

Today was the dreaded Brindley day! Everyone else has been freaking out the closer it gets to their “Brindley days,” while I was pretty much unphased! Lol. A lot of the others were putting in special effort for the day he came to watch their classes, but I figured there's not point making the classes any different to what I would normally do – how is he going to help me with my everyday classes if he only sees the cream of the crop??

Alas, even though it was me he was coming to assess and crit, etc., my teachers also suffered from Brindley day syndrome... I had last minute things to prepare for my ichinensei classes (enlarged photos and labels), and generally two very nervous teachers. Azuma-sensei showed up for the first class which was unfortunate, as it was my ninensei class. As is typical of them, they were incredibly unresponsive and basically ruined the whole competition idea of the activity, so that it became the most boring worksheet thing ever done. Sigh. Oh well. No doubt there will be words said about that class. Double sigh.

The ichinensei classes were a lot of fun as they really got into the memory card game I had for them. The hurriedly-prepared pictures and labels for the front of the class actually worked fairly well, which just goes to show that my JTEs obviously do know how to do this job better than I do (who would have thought... 2 months experience vs several years...). Brindley got dragged into these classes as well, but I think he enjoyed it so all's well.

Brindley's talk afterwards was far less scathing than I was ready for, which was quite nice! He loves my ichinensei teacher (she was his first head JTE), and had almost nothing but compliments for that class. He had plenty to say for the ninensei class, but nothing as bad as I was expecting. Also got some good tips on what / how to prepare for classes, ideas for changing games, etc. Was quite a pleasant experience really... So glad I didn't get myself worked up about it :D

I did manage to forget to order bento this morning though, so no lunch for me. Sigh. I'm not all too hungry though, so I should survive until I leave... Plus I have no clue how to ask my Kyoto sensei if I can nip out quickly to buy something to eat... ( すみません居と先生。。。絵と。。。ちょっとニプアウツわいいですか？) I'm sure he'd love that... (to all those of you that can't read that, I basically said “excuse me kyoto sensei... um... would a quick “nip out” be ok? And I wrote “nip out” in Japanese). (or at least I hope that's what I wrote)

This week seems to be 45min periods every day, and no clubs after school, so there's lots of time for me to study my Japanese. :D I'm freshly determined to master this freaking language! :P I have my flash card program all set up on my pc with hiragana and katakana (カタカナ！！ Aaaaaaargh!!! It's so めんどくさい！！) (troublesome / annoying)

Wow the last class of the day is already starting! Scary...

Miniature funny girl

There’s a miniature girl in my one class – she’s not particularly tiny, but just smaller enough that you notice it. And she’s not just short, she’s miniature. As in everything is in tall proportions, just made smaller. Hmmm I’m realizing this is harder to explain that I thought, but I think you get the idea. If not, think Godzilla, just not. Got it? OK.

Anyways, she’s a funny little character. She’s always making jokes that are much more western normal than the jokes that other kiddies make. Today she shook my hand. Then she called me over again later to shake my hand. Then she called me again, so I high-fived her. Then she called me again, and I shook fingers with her. Now we just look at each other and giggle. She’s weird, but very cute.

When we got to cleaning time, we were having jedi-like fights with our brooms. I won. Haha!! (don’t worry though, I didn’t leave any bruises. Mwa ha ha). As I was walking back to the staff room afterwards I saw her in the distance whispering to a whole bunch of kiddies. When I got there, she was gone, and all the kiddies were shaking hands with me.

I feel I’m only days away from the first waterballoons, etc. I love my school. :D

The Japanese medical world

Well it turns out it wasn’t my studious efforts that brought on the headache, but rather something to do with my kidney and/or bladder infection. Fun fun. So here follows the thrilling story of my first encounter with the Japanese medical world.

Thursday morning I got a bad headache, but didn’t think about it too hard. Probably because it hurt to think too hard… The medicine the school nurse gave me helped for a few hours, but by the time I went home, the headache ( ずつう) was back full swing. I emailed my friend in Osaka to tell him I wasn’t coming as I didn’t feel too great, but said that I might go through Friday morning for the day, so I’d let him know what my plans were. Haha.

I swallowed a wonderful South African paracetemol tablet (which works fine even without having to have a meal first – take that Japanese medicine!), and felt much much better for most of the night. I went to bed somewhere around 23:30 and I could feel the beginnings of the headache again, but I figured I’d sleep it off. My bug must have been having a good chuckle at my naivety…

Friday morning I knew I needed to go to the doctor, so I got myself going at about 09:20 (about 20 minutes after waking up) with my head pounding. I figured I’d skip breakfast then as the doctor may need to do blood samples or something that weren’t chocabloc full of breakfast. Mistake #1. I found out at the clinic that the doctor “speaks very good English” which made me feel a bit better about the situation. Then I sat and waited. And waited. And then some. Around 2 hours later, I get summoned through to the consultation room, at which point my head is pounding (although to be fair one of the nurses did come and ask after about 1h20min if I wanted to lie down, and I declined (rather than reclined… witty I know…).

The doctor understood perfect English, but what came out of his mouth was… well… interesting. It could quite easily have passed for something European perhaps. Maybe half Spanish half Greek? I wasn’t all too sure, but whatever it was, it was not the “very good English” that I’d been promised. This only made my headache worse as I had to decipher everything the doctor said to me. Eventually when he’d checked all he wanted to check and asked all he wanted to ask, he concluded that it was a kidney and/or bladder infection (if he specified at any point which one it was, he said it in Spassian/Russish... Then he brings out the pills and starts explaining what they are. Antibiotics – yes I know those… Mumble mumble gracias Stalin – somehow my mind decided that he’d told me they were pain killers. Anti-breathing agents… I’m sorry what? Antibreathing agents. “Oooooooooohkaaaaaaaaaaaaaay…” says me with a very very confused look on my face, which he obviously picked up. Antibreathing agents foroo zu keedonees.

…

Oh you mean antiBLEEDING agents? Yes yes, antibreathing agents, that’s mumble mumble said.

As I’m sure you can imagine, I was quite relieved to discover the true identity of the little red pills… (appropriate colour for an antibreathing agent, I’d imagine). So after all this, I finally get to pay and leave.

Then it turns out I owe MUCH more than I thought it would be (\4000), so I have to go to the ATM to draw money, and come back again. I manage to get 10 steps out of the clinic before realizing I haven’t put my shoes back on, and I’m still wearing the indoor slippers (oh PS Japanese people often don’t wear their normal shoes inside, but instead go barefoot/with socks, or have special slippers for wearing inside). So I rush back, get my tekkies on, and zoom up the road as fast as I can to get the money to come back to pay the bill to leave the clinic to drink my drugs to stop breathing. :D So after about 3 hours of being processed, I was out, starved and ready to be drugged.

Have I ever told you how much I love KFC?

Itai desu!

I have a headache from trying too hard with my Japanese and hiragana all at the same time. :S At least I now know that “autumn” is “aki” (or rather, “あき”). And I know how to write “yo” (“よ“) and a bunch of other letters. :D Oh, and Japanese people should really decide how to write their letters – I found two different ways of writing “re” (“れ”), and my JTE didn’t know which was right or wrong. And they should develop more differentiated letters. と and ス are confusing on paper already… let alone まほは, るろ, れわ, etc. I was going to type more, but the keyboard just went bananas on me, so I can’t get to the katakana now. Just let it be believed that they’re confusing as hell. Sigh.

Now I have a headache from fighting with the keyboard. Double sigh.

Anyways. Tonight I’m going to Osaka, so that tomorrow I can spend most of the day seeing some sights. I’m thinking about the きんかくじ or the ぎんかくじ, but I haven’t decided yet (kinkakuji and ginkakuji – silver and gold temples, respectively. I think. )

Will save the scavenger hunt story for after its actually been done!

What to call this...

I think I slipped another notch into the whole “getting into the hang of school and Japan” thing today. First I improvised through an explanation of the “to” infinitive after my wonderful JTE told the class “Greg sensei will now explain the ‘to’ infinitive! Then I managed to do some filing (me, filing, I know, I know…). Finally I was looking up a few random things in my Japanese English dictionary, and I actually somehow recognized most of the hiragana. And managed to figure out the rest. And couldn’t find the word I was looking for, but that’s not the point.

All that I feel like I need to master now is sleeping with my eyes open in the staff room. It’s crazy how tired I feel after an entire 3 classes today… Oh that’s right, I also created a lesson plan in 30min for my ichinensei whose sensei had been away last week… I’m just that good.

Tonight I have no lesson planning to do. That’s zero, nothing, nuddu, zilch, not a sausage. I think I’m going to get into bed just after walking through the door. :D

Discovered yesterday that I can’t go visit Andrew in , as I have to go on the Kobe scavenger hunt. By have to of course, I mean how could I not go on it?? Lol.

Just heard the ichinenseis singing. OMW! They’re lucky I didn’t break down in tears! :P They were incredible! And they’re not even finished yet… I love my kiddies. :D It seems they’re going to be performing in some sort of competition at the end of October. I can’t wait to go see that one!

Think I’ll have to try get my hands on that music as well. It’s got a lovely tune… Nananana naa naa naa nanaaaaa… See?

The Yuko 2000

It’s bad enough suddenly being in a world of salaries and bills, but getting all your bills in Japanese is really just cruel. Not to mention some forms that you have to send back to them, after choosing one of 4 possible options, all just as confusing as the last. Thank goodness for the Yuko 2000. She’s amazing. Near perfect translation capabilities, incredible A.I. personality which is quite convincing really, AND knows the ins and outs of calligraphy. I think I’ll be buying myself one sometime soon. It was either that, or the Nintendo DS (which admittedly has way cooler games), but when was the last time you got a friendly text message from your DS?
I think I want a DS. Although the software I’ve seen so far for the kanji and normal dictionaries has not been that amazing. Hopefully there’s more out there. I will have to ask around. Definitely want some sort of electronic dictionary (more gadgetyness), but would prefer the DS as it can do a lot more than just dictionary functions. We’ll still see. And then there’s the pokemon game.
And there’s a new pokemon movie out, and I can’t watch it as its all in Japanese. I will have to find a subtitled version.
And the train would be that much more fun with a DS and pokemon. :D I wonder if I can buy English games in this country.

The new Engrish

Japan has come up with a crafty way to get rid of all the Engrish in their country (well the written kind anyway), and convince the English speaking western world that they’ve fixed that problem. The solution? French! There are a million shops with signs up in French, proudly advertising (I think) what’s inside. Of course me with my amazing French skills just goes “oh yes, how charming, ‘shlurpideegurpbooble.’ That’s fantastic French” and that’s that. I’d love to find someone that can speak French to give me their opinion on this wonderful new language they have no doubt discovered. Probably Flench or something of that sorts.
Luckily the previous Engrish era has left us some beautiful momentos to remember it by… “Open AM7 to PM09:00.” Quite aesthetically pleasing really. Maybe it’s Zen.
There’s a hot water dispenser (for lack of a better word) behind me with some choice Engrish on the top, but I couldn’t be bothered to go look it up. <>

English vs Japanese

So the home economics teacher speaks practically perfect English, but she’s too shy to talk (I think. Maybe I smell bad… hmmmm). So of course I have to learn my Japanese quickly so that I can talk to her in broken Japanese, lest she wear out her fantastic English. :D Life in Japan is always interesting. But then I did just recently (yesterday) buy my Japanese – English dictionary, and my “Learning the Kanji” book. Sarah recommended the latter, and her Japanese reading is superb (but then a few years at university might have helped it along as well!). So hopefully I’ll be fully fluent in a day or two. :P
I also have an English teacher who I never have class with, and I actually don’t know what level English he has, as I never get much more than “Could you please mark these papers for me?” and “Thank you.” My Kyoto sensei’s English is future tense. As in he may be speaking English some time in the future… But he gives out tasty cookies, so that’s ok.

Where is my mind...

So far I have received good tidings of Japanese pears and chocolate biscuits from my Kyoto sensei. The pear looks like an apple. The chocolate biscuit was individually wrapped in the thickest plastic you’ve ever tried and miserably failed at ripping open in your life. I’m yet to eat the pear (its in the fridge). The chocolate biscuit was tasty. Yum yum. Or as I saw the once as the name of a restaurant, Myu Myu. And it was written a million times over the billboard so that it read MyuMyuMyu MyuMyuMyu MyuMyuMyu. Classic stuff. I’m getting distracted. I think tomorrow or the next week I’ll bring my favourite chocolate chip cookies from the Daiei grocery store. The only problem is I can’t stop eating those ones once I open the package, so I’m afraid I’ll scoff the lot myself. :SThe Black Eyed Peas are saving me from falling asleep. I love them. And Within Temptation of course. And as if its not bad enough that the other JETs don’t know who Within Tempation are (close that wikipedia right now, I see you looking them up…), my kiddies don’t even know who Evanescence are. This from the nation that worships Avril Lavigne, Cameron Diaz and… well Cameron Diaz. Thank you Softbank…

Goodnight

Today (although don’t let that fool you into thinking this is an out-of-the-ordinary behaviour) I started falling asleep in the staff room. Aaaaaaargh! I wish I drank coffee! :P So far the best remedy has been to get up and take a walk around – most times I end up looking out the window at the kiddies in PE class, and entertain myself watching their antics for a while.
Today though, there was no saving grace of PE, so I took myself off to the bathroom, closed myself in a stall and semi-slept for 5 minutes. :D All the other teachers seem to sleep quite happily in the staff room, and I’ve done it a couple times myself (although somehow they sleep while still sitting upright, whereas if I try that I always jerk myself awake as my head falls when I “drop off” so to speak), but the once I got told off lightly by my one JTE… but then they would never be more confrontational that “lightly telling off,” so on the inside she was probably screaming it out… It’s hard to tell. Sigh.

The Japanese in general

It took me forever to get there, but it seems at last I’m starting to remember the teachers names. There are still one or two who (to my mind anyways) look too much alike, so I’m having a little difficulty with them. And a few that don’t sit at their desks very often, so its hard to confirm there names on my seating chart (I love the seating chart just by the way. It always sits on top of my weekly schedule. Which by the way is absolutely massive!).
And then there are the students. Oh goodness… There’s a group of about 5 ninenseis who’s names I will never forget because a) they stalk me whenever they see me, point madly at their faces and chant “Name? Name? Name?” and remind me constantly what their names are. And b) because Maho and Akane decided to name each other Aho and Bakane, which is completely unforgettable. I just have to watch out I don’t call Akane Bakane by mistake. :D Admittedly I thought Aho was a play on a similar sounding English word, and didn’t realize there was actually such a Japanese word.
And I will master the name Kanji!! I got my “Mastering the kanji” book yesterday (along with my Japanese to English dictionary), so now I can get going at last. And Furuichi sensei really wants to help me with the kanji as well, so hopefully I’ll be fairly set. We’ll see though.

Sports and clubs

School sports in Japan doesn’t work the same as at home. At home, you take part in rugby, soccer and do music, but I suppose you might favour certain activities over others (and maybe pay them a little more attention, like say, maybe, music… :P ). In Japan, you have a) school and b) your club activity. Yes that’s right, I did not use the plural (and its not just the Japanese lack of plural words getting to me – a whole different story). If you play baseball, that’s it. There’s no room for soccer, music, art, volleyball or tabletennis in that schedule… LET ALONE a combination of the above! I’m not exactly sure when and how they decide what to dedicate their school career to, but once its chosen that’s it. You’re doomed to don the leather glove for the rest of your school career.

At least I get to go to whatever clubs I want to every day. :P

Chocolate!

So I’ve already mentioned before that Japan is almost completely devoid of chocolate bars – I’ve seen snickers, kitkats and aero bars. Nothing else. :S But on the plus side, they do have a bit of variety within this select group… and when I say “a bit” I mean “holy moly!”
Kitkats come in flavours. Chocolate flavour – that’s normal. White chocolate – not unheard of. Dark chocolate… getting weirder. Grape flavoured chocolate… no probl… wait what? Grape flavoured chocolate??Well to be fair it’s not grape flavoured. It’s some fancy words that basically mean “grapes from the Mediterranean.” And it seems this is actually quite a thing in Japan – people collect the boxes of the different types of kitkats. From what I can tell they come out with new ones every week or so. Really strange people… I wonder how long they keep making particular flavours… and if they’ll ever stop making the normal chocolate flavoured ones in favour of some random “rice cakes and pilchards” flavour. Or something.

Strange Japanese schools

I’ve just realized what it is that’s weird about Japanese schools… It’s note the super long days, or the teachers changing classes instead of the students… or everyone speaking Japanese (how bizarre!), or each student only doing one sport or club activity everyday of the week… or or or…
It’s the fact the students never have a break time! I’ve only just realized that they never get a chance to play and do what they like. They’re obviously being molded into whatever it is Japanese students are molded into, but its still freaky that there’s no break time! I was just thinking how cool it would be if I brought some Frisbees and we all played together, and then I realized I have no idea when we would do that! :)