Hard Gay

Coming from a country where I think on the whole people are reasonably tolerant of other people's lifestyle choices, I never cease to be astounded when this character appears on my TV screen.

His name is "hard gay" and played by comedian Razor Ramon, and his main role is strutting around in the outfit you see here, shouting "oooh, hard gay des!".

Nice to see Japan is making headway in erasing stereotyping and prejudice. Maybe a long time before they are seeing same-sex marriage.

And i think the fact that "hard gay pop-up-pirate" is sold out, says something...not sure what, but something.

Scary Day

Well, after Crusty`s post on Sunday, I spotted this little beauty in a clothes shop, proving I believe that Iwate has by far and away the most scary Santas.



And while we are on the topic of things that are a bit scary that shouldn`t be, does anyone else find this fruit cup a little unnerving?



ps: sorry the images are sideways, my internet at home is broken, so I am having to do this at school and I have no way to turn things here. Will put them right when Asahi net starts behaving.

Fencing Enkai

Saturday has been a bit of a Japanese intensive day. First I went to fencing club, which is always hard work as it involves not only speaking Japanese, but also doing it before lunch, which is definitely a bit of a struggle. It turned out that due to exams coming up and the practice hall being in the same temperature zone as the antarctic, this would be the last session of the season. So after practice we had a final meeting and then all went for a curry lunch. At the meeting I got a bottle of sake for no apparent reason, but very happy about that. Somewhere during this time I inadvertently agreed to go to an enkai that evening. Having already made plans to meet Jo, this was certainly not my intention, but somewhere in the proceedings I conceded, as after the curry I was left with a cheery "see you tonight then". Then headed off to the plaza for a bit of cramming for the Japanese Proficiency Test, and to compose a groveling email to Jo. As it turned out, it wasn't as scary as first expected. The food was very Japanese and I was driving so just watched everyone else get drunk, but in hindsight this was probably better as Japanese confidence goes up with alcohol, but not sure ability is effected in the same way. Anyway, the coach was really nice and told me (repeatedly as shochu intake increased), that he was so happy to have an international club. Half way through they brought me a birthday cake and a nice pot of flowers. It was so cute. But after a few hours of talking only Japanese I was exhausted and as the evening wore on the Japanese was becoming faster and faster, so I excused myself a little early and headed home.

Okinawa

For my birthday treat I went to Okinawa for four days with some friends. It is a small island off the south of Japan, and even though it is snowing here, it is still 28oC down there, so it was beautiful.

We were a little concerned about the weather forecast, as it predicted rain the whole time, and as we were sitting in the restaurant eating breakfast and watching the rain run in torrents down the window, we were a little apprehensive. But, we are British and a little rain never stopped us. We got the brollies and the anoraks and headed off into the storm.

Our first stop was a castle, which also has this gate which is on the 2000yen note, so quite famous. I'm sure it is also famous for other stuff too, but I don't know what that is. Luckily by the time we had re-formulated our plan five times to account for the weather before deciding it wasn't going to stop raining and we should just stick with the original schedule, it had stopped anyway.

After the castle we headed to a Chinese garden. Having forgotten the guide book, we actually went to a different slightly less impressive garden, but nice none the less. The we ate dinner in a cafe run by a slightly eccentric Italian man. It turned out that we were just next to the university which was having it's festival open day, so we had a wander round there. We narrowly escaped going to a ecology lecture when Mike's "eigo?" (do you speak English?), was mistaken for "eco?", had a quick look at a photo exhibit and then were on our way.

Next on the agenda were some caves with a golden waterfall. This was in a place called "Okinawa Land", which was just one big tourist trap, but we happily handed over wodges of cash and headed into the depths. The cave did have impressive stalactites and stalagmites, but the waterfall was rather measly and so a bit disappointing. Half way round it suddenly turned into a disco with blue lights lining the walls and the music started and we turn a corner to be confronted with something from Santa's wonder land. I have never seen so much electricity so close to so much water. A very tacky death-defying experience. Only in Japan...or maybe America?

We emerged from the caves on the other side of Okinawa land and then had to go through corporate world to get back to the car park. On the way we drank snake essence wine, played with traditional toys, ate sugar and potato icecream, and even had a chance to do print club! Maybe the highlight was us trying to make our own Shisas (click here to see what they should look like)



On the second day we visited the pineapple park and rode around in little pineapple cars and fought a school tour party over the cake samples in the shop. We also went to the beach and the aquarium. Luckily this day was very sunny indeed. Sadly we timed out for going to the underwater observatory, but after the aqarium had already seen a bit too much sea life anyway.

Mid year conference

This week we had the JET midyear conference. This is just an excuse to get all the JETs together so we can drink a bit and don't go crazy for not having spoken at natural speed English for several months. Well, no it is so we become superb teachers of English, but kill two birds and all that...

This is us on my birthday with our bottle of red wine. Everyone was very nice to me and Mike bought me some lovely Anna Sui perfume and Jo got me..well, we aren't quite sure what it is, but it has The Little Prince on it, so I am very happy with it. Think it grows, but I can't find out until the spring as it is too cold to try at the moment. One bonus of being imprisoned at the midyear conference on your birthday is a, all your friend are already there and b, you are in a swanky hotel with lovely onsens. Not bad at all.

Bloody Weather

It's November the sodding sixth and it is snowing already. I am not impressed. The first year we arrived it started early December and last year I don't remember it snowing until I got back from England, so that would be late December. But now we have blizzards (by East Anglia weather forecast standards) and settled snow!

Baking Weekend

This weekend after my hair cut Jo came round for a weekend of baking. At first the plans went slightly awry when Jo brought a bottle of red and we spent the evening with pizza and videos instead, but then Sunday we were up and raring to go. So, we decided what we would bake and went to the supermarket and got everything we needed, but then got distracted by a ramen shop on the way home.

Eventually at 3pm on Sunday we were ready to start cooking. We put on our aprons and tied up our hair in bandanas, as per usual Japanese cooking style. Now we have been here too long to be able to actually do an activity without donning the correct costume.

In an attempt to make up for not having started until so late, we adventurously decided on four separate recipes. The first was non-cook cheesecake. We burnt that. The scones (see photo for example of cooking prowess), we burnt on the outside and raw in the middle. However, our two pumpkin products - pie and soup - made up for it by being really, really good.

It was then we realised that in two days we are both going away for a week and don't have time to eat any of it. Think people at school may be subjected to charcoaled cheesecake...