far, far away

I'm boring, aren't I

You might have noticed that lack of pictures and blogging lately....tis true, I haven't really done much lately though to warrant any blogging. And I can only get so annoyed with the Japanese, but that reminds me...

So, I went to the post office on Monday to do an international money order. I filled the form out three times...yes, three times, for minor little errors. It was a bit annoying, to say the least.

My cellphone rings at work on Friday, which never happens, Friday or not. I had one of my English teaching colleagues pick it up for me. It was the post office. Apparently in the "purpose" section where I wrote in "bills" wasn't enough to satisfy their curiosity. The English teacher explained that I meant credit card bills. They understood, but wouldn't write that in for me. I had to go there and do it myself. Problem is they close at 4. I get off of work at 4. So, I had to leave work early to haul it over to the post office to write "(credit cards)" next to the word "bills." Then everything was ok. Argh.

The Japanese have this fear about writing anything for anyone else. When I first came here I went with my supervisor to a bank to open up an account. There was a section on the form where I had to write my address in Japanese (which is quite long and full of kanji characters that I don't know). I asked if my supervisor could write it for me and they said no! I was write there! Crazy, huh.

Well there you have it...all I can come up with is another complaint...

Look like a busy Japanese

It's no secret, if you've been here before you surely know that I take issue with the Japanese always trying to make it seem as if they're busy. I talked about teachers before and all of their "fake busy" antics. Let's talk about Japanese women today.

Ladies, do you want to look busy? Just run everywhere! Picking up the phone when it rings in the office? Run. Going up the stairs to the station platform where the train won't arrive for another 10 minutes? Run. Half way down the block and the cross walk has already changed to red? Heck you were already running, you might as well keep going. Just run.

I'm not even kidding. They run, every where and for just about any reason. It makes you feel stressed out just watching them. But there you have it, you're "Look like a busy Japanese" lesson for the day.

Busy busy

I haven't had time lately to write anything, but nothing all that exciting is really going on. I've been busy  because I started giving trumpet lessons to one of my students after school, so I'm getting home a bit later than normal every night. It's been a lot of fun though. I miss playing and she's a really good student, so I don't mind at all. She's been playing piano since she was four and the recorder for the last two years, so she's got a good music background. She's been learning very fast.

Let's see...what else...ohh today was parents day at the kindergarten, that was fun. Not bad really, it's just that I wasn't given very much time for my lesson, which was embarrassing because I came off us hectic in front of all the parents. One kid totally freaked out when he was knocked out of the game we were playing. I realize these are little kids and stuff, but seriously I can only describe this little boy as a total bitch. He just totally goes ape shit whenever the littlest thing goes wrong.

Uhhh, that's all.

Wedding Update

Well, we set a date and booked a place. October 14, 2006. The reception will be at the Ocean Acres Country Club. Check out our website !

I'll take a Clue with a side of Common Sense please

First two days back at work and my gutless supervisor has already scored strikes in 2006.

Strike 1- On Tuesday I finally get my schedule for January, oh, whats that there in the box for Tuesday (yes, the very same Tuesday)? It says "bento" which happens to mean boxed lunch in Japanese, in other words, no school lunch. Good to know...the day before perhaps. I was not pleased, though I was quite hungry. I binged on green tea, which kept hunger at bay, but brought on a massive caffeine headache in the late afternoon.

Strike 2- I have a nice new clean and pressed lunch apron on my desk this morning (students and teachers serve their own lunches in Japan), funny, I still have my dirty old one....ohhhhh we were supposed to hand the old ones in. She still hasn't quite gotten a hold on the whole English/Japanese thing yet, as in I speak English, not Japanese, at least not enough to understand the "hand in your apron" announcement.

It's ok. Apparently a little giggle and a stupid ass smile are enough to smooth such things over.

Bored

It's been pretty boring since Shell left. I guess it was good that I had to go to work on Thursday and Friday. That was pretty boring too, but at least I got my kindergarten lessons finished for the coming term.

On Friday my BOE boss, Mr.Shimada, invited me out to dinner. It was lots of fun. My BOE supervisor (I'm an underling to just about everyone), Ms.Saito, and a supervising teacher, Mr.Morimoto, from the BOE came too. It's the same group that took me out the first night I was here in Osaka, same restaurant even. After that we spent some quality time down at the local karaoke box. Good times.

What a couple of days

Well, I've given up on writing it all, so here's the short version-

Last week Shell and I went on our trip to Tokyo. It was tons of fun. The night bus there and back was terrible, but it saved us a lot of money and we got to go lots of places in Tokyo because of it, a good trade off if you ask me. We got to go up to Nikko, a really fantastic temple complex about two hours north of Tokyo by train. I'm pretty sure it was built to deify the first Shogun, though I might be off on that one. Either way, one of the Shoguns is buried there.

We really criss crossed the city. It was nice, because last time I went to Tokyo on vacation funds were short and I didn't really get a great feel for the city. This time I had some money saved up, so we got to eat out and make to just about all the different districts of Tokyo.

After we got back to Osaka we spent New Year's Eve and Day with my host family. New Year's Eve we went to a Shinto shrine and then a Buddhist temple. Then we did a 1am trip to the onsen (bath house). It was relaxing, though the water was a tad too hot for me that night.

In the morning we went to my host mom's brother's house and had osechi, which is the traditional Japanese New Year's food. Its lots of different cold foods served in these ornate boxes. The food itself isn't so appealing, especially at 9am, at least to me. Then we were off to two more temples and finally back home.

Today was Shellie's last day here in Japan. Quite a sad day for us. Shell was really upset and cried quite a bit at the airport. It will be quite lonely for me here now. I will dearly miss having someone to come home to every night and someone to wake up with every morning. I'm really happy that Shell got the chance to live here though, she got to see a lot of things most people can only imagine.

Well, I'm going to...well, I'm not sure what I'm going to do now, but this is done.

Tokyo, Nikko, and New Years

It's been a loooong week or so. I'm beat! Pictures are up. Click those things on the right side and take a look. I'll write more later...