Yet another good bye party!

Tonight we had an English teacher-exclusive farewell party for Mrs K. It was quite sad to be saying good bye, but it was a really nice restaurant and the food was excellent.

When we first arrived they sat us next to a table full of drunk business men who we could only just see through the cigarette smoke surrounding them, but then a waiter offered us the coolest table in the restaurant.

You had to go through a mini door to get to it and inside there was a table with sofas either side, but the room was rather trapezoidal so the sofas started by being almost too small to sit on at one end, and by the other they had been padded out with several cushions just to make sure you were close enough to the table to hear the conversation.

The door was actually a bit of a hazard. Later on all four members of our group virtually knocked themselves out on it when going to the loo and the waiters had some near misses too. It had a bit of an Arabian feel to the decor and if it had been any darker we would have needed a torch.

I think the lighting effect was an attempt to hide the fact they were feeding us raw fish. Most of the food was really good; beef salad, chicken and aubergine stir fry, smoked salmon, fried rice and so on. but then out came the sashimi...and it was shrimp. I have nothing against shrimp, especially as it is one of the few pieces of sushi that is actually cooked! But this shrimp had head, tail and legs all still attached. It looked at me from the plate with a little smile on its still present face. I couldn't eat it. I picked at the raw tuna and eventually smuggled the offending article to the person next to me. Luckily by this point we were quite a few cocktails into the evening and nobody noticed or cared.

In fact the only downside to the evening was that Mr T forgot to bring the good bye card. I had gathered together her favourite students and we had written a lovely big card in English with stickers and pictures all over it, but then he didn't remember to bring it. Of course I was very gracious about the whole thing.

By 9 o`clock the conversation had degenerated into bitching about co-workers in rapid Japanese so I headed for the train.

Ladies of leisure

Today Ms S and I decided to take a very long lunch. School was totally dead and nobody was going to miss us, so we headed to our favourite ramen shop and had a good old natter while we wasted an hour and a half of our day. You see, much better mood now, because even the slurpiness of the noodles was fun. I of course had my usual miso ramen and gyoza. One day I am going to be brave and try the "tan tan men" which is red and has flames and lots of words I cant read all over the advert . It looks dangerous. I thought I could write a book about "miso ramen of Japan" as I never deviate from the safety of the miso, wherever I go. This does have the downside that it would be based mostly on restaurants in rural north Japan, rather than places people would actually want to visit, but it`s an idea all the same.

Average day, average post

Well, I have nothing in particular to write about, but I felt rather ashamed about my moany post yesterday, so I just wanted to write something new, now I don't have it in for the entire 120million people in this country.

Today I have spent all day making my English Room (ER) at school. I met my English-loving first year student (also known as MNFBs - my new best friend student). We ate lunch together and then set about decking out the room with maps, union jacks and postcards. It now looks very pretty and our lovely blackboard art really adds to it. The idea is that students will come and eat lunch in there with me and be duped into speaking English without realising they are learning. A cunning plan indeed. At some point I shall take some photos of it for you all to see.

I decided that the reason for my grumpiness yesterday may not have purely been down to sleep deprivation. When all the teachers left to go to other schools, I got so much good bye chocolate that my system was running on pure sugar, but then the supply stopped and I think I may have been in some sort of crash. Still, I am sure you are all relieved to know I am much happier today and haven't been annoyed once!

Someone didn`t sleep enough...

I think I may be feeling a little bit tetchy today. I have found people are annoying me more than they should today, considering they aren't actually doing anything even slightly wrong.

My first example is the fact the teacher next to me keeps talking to herself. I don't mean the odd "oops" or "what do I need to do...?" I mean full blown conversations. I have noticed that people do talk to themselves here more than they do in England and it doesn't have the same connotation of being totally barking mad, but this woman takes it too far. I also have found myself conversing with inanimate objects now more than I have in the past though. My cooking ingredients often get a good talking to and I have many unreciprocated debates with my clothes. This is one of the two things I now do that I really hate when other people do and wish I could stop. The other is slapping your leg in a loud manner when something tickles your fancy. This is maybe the most annoying habit on the planet and I just want to hit people when they do it, but often I find myself doing just that.

The other thing that has annoyed me today is the noodle slurping. I know this is a cultural difference and I should appreciate the small oddities that make this such an interesting country to live in, but OMG, do they have to be so loud?! It is a disgusting noise however you look at it and if they have to do it at all, can they not just be a little more quiet? Actually, I have found that younger people do it a lot less. If you go to a ramen shop the old biddies are going at it hammer and tongs, but the teenagers tend to pile it on a spoon and not make any noise at all.

Will attempt to go to bed early and with any luck will be less easily incensed tomorrow.

one more moan

The third thing that has annoyed me today is greed. The headmaster brought two big boxes of grapefruit for everyone in the office. Most people took one or two to eat at their desk, but one teacher took 8!! Just count them! It is not that he took them that annoys me, but the general blase attitude towards showing total gluttony. It is the same when someone brings cakes into the office, people pounce on them like a pack of vultures that haven't eaten in a week. Maybe it is my British reserve, but it just doesn't put people in a very flattering light in my opinion.

End of term

These are some of the first year students, possibly all from the table tennis club. It was taken on the last day of term. The girl at the back on the left is the student president of the English room. She is good at English for a first year and really enthusiastic, one of my fav first years.

The big desk move

At the end of the school year the teachers also move years like the students, so the teachers who were looking after the first years become second year teachers and so on. This in itself is fairly sensible as they get to know the students fairly well. In the staffroom, first year teachers sit at one end, the third years at the other and the second years in the middle. When the first year teachers become second years, they move from the wall end to the centre. This again is not so strange...maybe a little troublesome because everyone has to move their stuff, but not totally illogical. The real commotion occurs because people don't just move desks, they take their desk, chair and filing cabinet with them. This is supposedly because the teachers who have been here longest have nicer desks, but recently they injected a bit of cash into the school and everyone has the same desk and chair anyway. Still, we boxed up all our belongings, hauled all the desks into the corridor, one teacher ran around with a little broom whisking all the dust into the air while another tried to trip up as many people as possible with the hoover wire and the men pulled desks and bookshelves all over the place. After about 20 minutes the dust settled and people stopped moving and there was my desk on the other side of the office waiting for me to put all my books back in it.

I said everyone in the office had the same desk and chair now. That wasn't entirely true a few days ago. I used to have a very nice squeaky old chair which I was quite attached to, but along with the desk move it has been replaced with a new ergonomic blue monstrosity. To be fair it is very comfortable and I`m sure in time I will come to love it, but not at the moment. The problem is it tips...and swivels...and bends...and the arms are much lower. So I try to put my elbow on the arm rest only to find it not there. To counteract my arm hurtling through empty space, I quickly shift my body weight to the other side creating a violent tipping motion. Jerking backwards to prevent the tipping, I find myself spinning round at a frightening speed and suddenly facing the teacher behind me. I give it a week before I fall off.

Snoopy and fried cheese

Take one girl with a hang over, one who hasn't slept in a bed for two nights, and another who has been out two nights in a row, and what do you get...a wonderful, fun Saturday of course!

In my usual way of making Jo do arty things she would normally never do in a million years, I made her and Hazel get up stupidly early to come and make stained glass with me. We arrived bright and early in Morioka ready to make a masterpiece of Tiffany excellence.

Here is a picture of what we made...

Ha, as if! Actually, we made this...


It is a night light and it took me 3 hours to make, so please stop laughing now.

Actually, we didn't even really make them at all, as all the pieces were already cut for us and we just soldered it all together, but even that was quite challenging at 10am. More importantly we ate take-away ramen while we were there and it was very nice. We also got a free CD that the shop owner had made and I bagged myself an English conversation class for when I have nothing to do when I have a weekday day off instead of Saturday starting August.

After our artistic desires had been fulfilled, we headed into town. Jo legged it and went and got her hair cut and Hazel and I did shopping, print club and all the little things that needed done. I can also check one thing off my "things to do before I leave Japan" list because we went and ate big cake in Kawatoku. It was as good as I had always imagined it to be. The tea was smooth and creamy and the cakes were giant!! It was worth waiting for and pretty much worth the 6 quid each we paid even when sharing a slice.

After we met Jo, of course we had to do print club again, cause it just ain't fair going without her. So we did that to kill time before we headed to Watami for fried cheese, pizza and NO CRABS!!! I also got to meet the replacement Jo for next year when she runs off to Prague and leaves us. I have managed to not meet Mel many times and sadly I think after getting up early and still suffering a slight hangover I was not at my best, but hopefully we can meet up again soon and I can be more perky. She seems very nice and will live quite close next year.

Enkai

Tonight was the leaving meal for the teachers who will be off to new schools in April. This is one of the two parties of the year which are quite formal and involve a lot of speeches and suits. Not a good start for a party in my opinion. This year we had 8 teachers leaving, so the speeches seemed to go on forever, but this did have the advantage that by the time they got to the last few, they had a bit too much of the Dutch courage in them and one almost fell over when he stood up.

It was quite sad because a lot of my favourite teachers are leaving, including my supervisor and calligraphy teacher. Hopefully some nice ones will come to replace them. It means we are getting a new English teacher, so I am quite looking forward to working with someone new.

At Japanese parties they often do something called a "el". This maybe comes from the English word "yell", because this is what it seems to be. Some poor sod has to stand up in front of everyone, wave their arms frantically whilst shouting "sank you, sank you, Mr X" or "good luck, good luck, Mrs Y" very loudly and drawn out. Then everyone else, who are standing in a circle round you, clap along and say it all again, but very fast. It is a scary, cult experience, and so far in two and a half years I have never had to be that poor sod in the middle...but not this time. There I was, arms flailing, voice breaking mirrors, showing my tummy in front of all my co-workers because my top rode up when I waved my arms.

Other than that, this enkai was going rather well. I had managed to avoid the Japanese sake, and by limiting myself to beer was still in a relatively sober state when I left the building...well, tried to leave. Suddenly I heard "nikora-san, redo wine...dou?" from a little side room. It was late, I wanted to go home. I turned my head to see the chairman of the PTA, the head master and the head of the office sitting with a two litre bottle of wine. I wasn`t going anywhere, was I. So I sat down on the squeaky vinyl sofa next to kocho-sensei and accepted the rather sweet, chilled red wine. Ok, so the conversation was actually rather interesting and mostly stayed within my levels of Japanese, such as the finer points of Narnia and Harry Potter. However, a good deal of wine and an hour later, we had moved onto politics and culture. I was out of my depth. It was really time to leave. So I declined the top up of wine, accepted the offer to have the remainder of the wine to take home, and staggered off into the moonlight with the huge bottle under my arm, my shoes in the other hand, singing away to myself. I think it is important as a cultural ambassador for my country to remain cool and sophisticated at all times, and I think I manage it admirably.

Prince Takamado Trophy Cup

Today was the fencing Prince Takamado Trophy Cup in Tokyo, so I stayed in with some cookies and a nice cup of tea and watched it on NHK. I was quite surprised we could watch it considering even the Olympic fencing is lucky to get a TV broadcast in England.

The woman`s final was upsetting as an annoying Korean lady who shouted a lot won it, but the men`s final was amazing. It was Ota from Japan vs. Peter Joppich from Germany. It was a really close match being tied until the final point. In the end Germany won, which I was happy about cause he was obviously a better player.

Guinea pig

Today was the first day of the new stations on the Hachinohe-Morioka line. To celebrate they were selling a special day pass for only 1000yen, so I took the train rather than drive. Was beginning to regret it when I saw how crowded the train was. Apparently the rest of Iwate had the same idea. It is good value considering someone coming from Hachinohe would usual have to pay 3000 just for a single.

Anyway, I met Mike at Morioka and we treated ourselves to a pound cake and cookie set in Aunt Stella`s then headed off to the university. We had agreed to take part in a research project about whether Westerners hear and interpret sounds differently to Asian people. We met the post-grad student and he look us to a little room where we sat at a table with a video camera trained on us and we had to listen to various nature sounds and write down a description of the landscape that the sound made us imagine. The first four sounds were Japanese insects, and the last four were thinks like blackbirds and frogs. It was interesting because the Japanese sounds gave me no real picture other than somewhere hot, but for the English sounds I could write loads, but Mike, who has lived in central London his whole life, couldn't identify any of them.

After we finished we walked into town - the long way thanks to my bad sense of direction - and had dinner at Watami, my favourite new restaurant. First we ordered the normal, Caesar salad, spring rolls, my favourite deep fried cheese...

and then Mike ordered this....

what was he thinking?? They are mini deep fried crabs which you just eat whole and they crunch!!! It is a torture method, not food!

I am like sooo cultured

This evening I got myself a big wodge of Japanese culture. I went to green tea ceremony, and not just the school club, but a proper one with adults and kimonos. I was actually quite nervous about it, so in the afternoon I joined the students practicing in the school tatami room and learnt all the words and actions. Then I dashed home and wolfed down some harusame soup and rice, leapt into the car and headed to Morioka.

I arrived still feeling quite full from my dinner, and was faced with this....

Somehow I had failed to notice the fact that there was also food involved, so I politely sat down to my forth meal of the day. It was actually very nice and quite light. The fish was yellow tail and even being a big lover of fish, I was still impressed. The pink thing in the rice is a piece of pickled cherry blossom, which tasted a lot better than it sounds. Then we had a yummy dessert of cherry blossom sponge wrapped around anko (red bean paste). The only downfall was it was then wrapped in a leaf, which I dutifully ate - not sure if I was supposed to or not though.

This lady in her nice kimono made tea and we talked about the Chinese poem on the wall behind her and flowers, and drank tea, and it was all going very well. Then someone mentioned that I had been in the tea club at school. At that point they decided it would be a good idea to have me make the tea. Now for anyone that has never seen tea ceremony, this is an intricate ceremony with loads of very precise and ordered movements, none of which I can remember. My little heart was beating full pelt, but with the help of the lady I made it through it and made two reasonable cups of tea.

It was actually after that that I made my only faux pas of the evening. After the ceremony, they pass around the little pot with the tea powder in it so everyone can look at the design. I stupidly forgot it has power still in it and turned it on its side to look at the pattern, so when the next person opened it, all the powder that had got stuck between the lid and the pot fell out all over the place. Very bad.

A career in Japan - it`s possible!

I have just been reading about an English man called William Adams who drifted onto a Japanese beach in 1600 and stayed and made himself into a samurai! I had no idea foreigners even lived in Japan in the 1600s, let alone made it to the ranks of the rich.

Now I am no historian, and I was reading this in Japanese, so I have no idea how accurate this is, but from what I gather, he got himself friendly with a guy called Toyotomi, who must be the first known gaijin whore. Basically, he worked out that this guy had lots of weapons on his boat, and a nice trade link to Europe, so he put him on the pay role and set up in business. He later went on to get himself a wife and two children and when given the chance at the age of 49 to go back to England, he stayed in Japan.

He is said to be the first Englishman to land on Japanese shores, so is like some sort of forefather to us. If you care to find out more Wikipedia has a very thorough entry on him.

This I believe is a picture of the man in question, but one can never be too sure.

Identity crisis

This morning someone came and said to me, "Good morning, Hillary, could you take 1-1 class second period?". My name is Nicola. Hillary did my job two and a half years ago. I feel somewhat undervalued. And why is it that I just smiled and said "sure, no problem", never actually mentioning the identity problem at hand? Must become more assertive.

Last night I learned...

...When transporting a flamingo, you should put it in a woman`s stocking.

Hello, my name is Nicola...

I have a lot of classic books in my flat...and I have actually read most of them. On Tuesday I had a night in and having left the book I was reading at school, decided I should start a new one. I perused the bookshelves and, passing up Dickens, Jane Austen and Arthur Conan Doyle, came across a book by Sophie Kinsella. "Who?!" I hear you say. And quite rightly. I think when I tell you the title you will understand what we are dealing with here. Yes, I am reading "Shopaholic Takes Manhattan". There, I said it! ....Oh, the shame.

The thing is I was quite tired on Tuesday, so I opted for something that was going to take the bare minimum of brain power, but come Thursday I find I am still reading it. This is worrying. It has no story, it is just about shopping, and the main character is a moron and I already hate her (and I am only on chapter 6), but I cannot. stop. reading. it. How does such rubbish have such a strong grip on me? I can imagine this is what smokers feel. It is bad, everyone else thinks badly of you for doing it, but however hard you try, you find yourself doing it. At least trashy novels won`t kill me.

Google bug

I just came across a very interesting post. Do try it.

...Well, when I say very interesting, I mean it kept me mildly amused for about 20 seconds. Go see for yourself.

The scent of spring

I have always thought of spring as a time of little fresh flowers poking through the soil, and blossom appearing on the trees and subsequently, a nice floral aroma. However, since someone pointed it out a while ago, I have been unable to ignore the other smell that rears its head come spring in Japan. As the snow melts, it reveals grass that has been buried for the best part of four months, and is thus somewhat rotten. Well, rotting to be precise. And now along with the flowers (which, by the way, are making the teacher next to me sneeze something rotten this year) I cannot help but notice the underlying scent of dying foliage. This has nipped my "thank God all the snow has gone" high in the bud.

Singledom blues

I blame this entirely on the spate of weddings we have been having recently, but I was having a conversation with a friend about how they really want to get married and -- no, I`m sure she doesn`t mind if I share this with you -- how sad they are they don`t have a steady boyfriend. Thing is, I could understand this if she was an old spinster with crows feet and greying hair, but she is pretty and only 27.

To quote Nick Hornby "only people of a certain disposition are frightened of being alone for the rest of their lives at twenty-six". Well, the Japanese are. Someone in their late-twenties shouldn`t be worried that they aren`t already paired off with three screaming children. I think it is entirely the fault of the car adverts. Seeing a man standing in front of his new station wagon with a pile of wide-eyed, smiling children spilling out of it, proudly telling us "I am a father" makes even me, the hater of all things under three foot, a bit broody.

A blogging waste of time

I am happy to announce I have today spent approximately 97 minutes of my 8 hour workday reading the blogs of people I do not know.

I recently discovered the "next blog" button at the top of blog pages that will take you to a random blog from the tens of thousands of blogs on blogger.com. Not only have I become very proficient in telling Spanish from Portuguese, I have also learnt some incredible things about the lives and sexual habits of people I have never met, do not know the name of and will never ever come into contact with. After reading about how they have lived their lives for the best part of a year, you start to feel quite involved, but then you press "next blog" again and they are lost forever in cyber space, leaving you feeling slightly bewildered and betrayed.

I have a friend who also dabbles in the readings of strangers` blogs. Once one blog that they read regularly was mentioned by a different site, and after their initial thought of "ooh, that`s my friend. I know him, how strange she knows him too'", it took a worrying amount of time to realise that it was in fact not their friend at all, but just just a comment about a person who`s site they read. I have also had similar reactions, for example when Go Fug Yourself won a bloggie, I was pleased for them in a way that should be generally be reserved for close friends and relatives. Surely developing such emotions about a totally unreciprocated relationship is a very worrying factor of the blogging phenomenon.

Although I do suggest having a look at my new friend`s this blog that I was reading this morning.

Valentines take 2

Happy white day!

Today girls all over Japan will be getting presented with lovely boxes of over priced chocolate in return for their efforts on Valentines, or else will be getting their handbag swinging practice in for when their boyfriends get home.

White Day is said to have been introduced by a marshmallow company in the 1960s, hence the fact it is called white day, after the lovely fluffy confectionery. However they have now lost out to cookies as the most popular gift to give to a loved one - or two of three, as according to the japan-guide survey, over 70% of men give gifts to more than one girl. Scarily this includes 11% who give them to their relatives! Isn't there something wrong and kind of sad about giving a sibling a Valentines gift?

Wedding Bells

This weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to the wedding of one of the teachers from school. This is my second wedding in Japan, so was a little more prepared for what was going to happen, but still there were some things that surprised me. I forgot about the part when the little child gives a bouquet to the bride. There was a little kid, must have been all of two years old, carrying a bunch of flowers bigger than him. His mother half dragged him up to the stage and he exchanged the flowers for a big toy. It is quite a cute custom, but I wonder where it comes from?
　
Here we are before the wedding, looking very respectable. I was a little shocked by how tall I look in the first photo, as I have never really noticed being particularly tall here, but it seems I must be.
　
This is the bride and groom and their parents. I think the big gold screen is just for photo purposes, but maybe it has a more traditional use. The outfit with the big white hat is the first thing the bride wears. After that she changes into a coloured kimono which has the colours of her new husbands family. After that there are a number of other changes. At this wedding there were only two more, but there are sometimes even more. Before the pink dress in the photo above she wore a western style white wedding dress.
　
But of course no wedding is complete without an after party. This is when all those respectable members of society drop their teacher roles and get completely blind drunk. I only went to the first after party, but if this is the state of them then, I hate to think what they ended up like after another couple of hours of drinking.

You`re never too old

Today I had a bit of a regressive day and did lots of things I should have stopped doing after my 14th birthday...but it was fun.

First we went to a place called Mach Land which is a big games and bowling place. First we did print club. We chose a machine that did themes, so you choose a theme and then it give you a suitable background and a pose you should do, then after the stamps you can put on using the computer are also themed to that. We did school, horror and white wedding. It was one of the most fun prikura I have ever done.

Then we played on the taiko machine. This is a game which plays a recent chart song, then shows little blue or yellow or red logos on the screen, the you bash a big drum and, in theory, make a noise similar to the original song`s drums. I got one of my best scores ever, but it was on super-super easy mode. Then we had a quick game of pool before heading off to town.

We spent the afternoon in the cinema watching The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I do realise I am 25 years old, but I still cried when Aslan died and was quite afraid of the White Witch. I guess it goes to show you can never be too old for C.S. Lewis.

The right use of irony?

Today I went to watch the Kids` Festival at Zenrinkan. All the children`s classes did a presentation of something they had learnt in class. It was all in English and some of them were so good. The little 3 and 4 year olds doing "head, shoulders, knees and toes" was adorable! Will put a photo up soon.

On the way there I saw a scene that made me chuckle to myself. There was a group of people protesting against traffic congestion. They had a big loud speaker and they were telling people they should be walking instead of using their cars. A very worthy cause indeed. However, the loud speaker they were using happened to be mounted to a large white van that was blocking most of the road and churning grey smoke out of its exhaust. I wonder if they could spot the irony?

By bye students

Today was our school graduation day. In the morning all the graduating students came into school with their skirts at knee length and their hair black. It was quite a surprise. They didn't look at all like our students. In the gym all the first year students were waiting and they also looked like different people. I haven't seen them wear their ties since we took the class photos on the first day of school!

Of course the gym was absolutely freezing and the big industrial heaters that look like jet engines were making enough noise to drown out the microphone, but sadly not creating any noticeable heat. The third years all traipsed into the hall and we clapped away until they all sat down. First the headmaster made a speech congratulating them all, then they went up one by one to collect their certificates. They are supposed to say "hai" when their name is called and the teacher next to me tutted constantly if they were too loud or too quiet or too quick....which was everyone. He sounded like a woodpecker.

Our headmaster's suit was interesting. For some reason the head always wears tails which looks very professional, but somehow just reminds me of an undertaker. Maybe because he has to stand next to a bunch of flowers bigger than him? Half way through the ceremony one girl started sobbing uncontrollably, but whether it was due to emotion or pneumonia who knows. After all the speeches and the national anthem and the school song (which I still don't know), we clapped all the students out and then had our photo taken in the staffroom with lots of very excited girls.

Now it is all over it is interesting to see the teachers that don't have anything to do this afternoon. Normally they are so busy they don't have a second to themselves, but now they actually have time to breath, they look a bit lost. One guy opposite me is just staring into space and has been for about 10 minutes now. Yours truly on the other hand has become a master (or maybe mistress?) at filling time. I can quite easily spend a whole day at my desk. In fact after the holidays when I have lessons again it is always a bit of a shock when I don't have time to read the whole of bbc news and post secret before lunch.

Pancake Day

Only a day late I celebrated pancake day last night.

They were very good and I managed to flip one for the first time. I am now a total pro; I could be in the flipping Olympics. Give me stuff to flip! Anyway, quite excited about my new found flipping abilities.

These pancakes were not pancakes as we know them though. Although the base was quite ordinary and the first one I made was with lemon and sugar and tasted just perfect, from then on it all went a bit Japanese...we had one with black sesame paste, one with anko (red bean paste) and even one with miso (soy bean paste)! I was happy with the sesame and anko, but I really have to draw the line at miso. It just isn't right.

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