1 year in Japan
Trip Start
Apr 20, 2004
1
5
13
Trip End
Aug 28, 2005
Iwakura,
Japan
Friday, April 22, 2005
Well today i am incelebration mode as I have been in Japan for exactly 1 year! Wow - I cant believe I made it to a year in this odd and sometimes frustraing/halarious/fun country. Have I turned part Japanese?..............Dan tells me I must have some Japanese in me at times. He cant talk as he owns a Hello Kitty tie!!! I do preferably eat salad with chopsticks now and we use chopsticks when eating at restaurants and pubs, we eat rice most days, "going to the shopping" is now a hobby and sport, karaoke is a fun saturday night out, I ride my bike in a skirt and heels, I own a bike with a basket, bell and light (no gears), high heels can be worn with anything as long as you wear little lace socks, i can sleep on the train, fruity bubbly Shochu my fav drink (Japanese wine is terrible!), i bow at people at least 5 times a day and have the most lovely manners!.......oh, and I can speak some Japanese
Kindy
. I got the visa extended so more time in Japan for me. We watched Lost in Translation the other night. Funny to see it again as the last time I saw it i was preparing to come over, had a girls day with Julz and Ange and to tell the truth it kind of freaked me a bit. Now, we could even understand some of the japanese and read the signs etc. Pretty funny now. Strangest thing I have seen is at the water amusement park when we all (everybody who was there) had to get out when the whistles were blown for 30mins of `rest time`.
Am i enjoying it? Overall, yes. Work is painfully monotonous most days which is frustrating. There is only so many times a day you can sing the ABCs, count to 20, talk about fruit, shapes and colours and sound totally happy about it! On the bright side, I am only at work 5.5 hours and in that time can teach between 1 - 4.25 hours a day and all on a full time wage which is more than I was getting as a qualified dietitian in NZ - ouch at the thought of that! The kids are soooooo cute (well most of them) and one of my personal favs counted from 380-400 yesterday! Not too bad for a 5 year old Japanese kid.
Addition: For those of you who are not too sure what I have been up to work wise, basically I am working in a call centre for 2-12 year old Japanese kids to call in and have a 10-15min English lesson which involves counting, singing, learning vocab and general conversation for those bright sparks
The office
. I also got to go teach at a kindergarten 1 day a week for 5 months too which was just heaps of fun and exhausting. Lucky I have awesome workmates too! Yoko and Shigemi are our two Japanese staff and keep us under control with great advice on Japan and feed us with Japanese so we can talk to and understand the chatterbox kids! We have 4 native teachers - Steve from Oz, Dave from Oz, Ivy from the Phillipines and me - Also had the pleasure of working with Ann-Marie another Kiwi and Danielle from Canada. Always fun times and laughs in the Telephone speaking office and of corse Chuhi/Beer train after a hard day!!! Since my last groupie, we have done a bit more travelling. We went to Hiroshima for 3 days. I really like Hiroshima - now a very peaceful and relaxing japanese city, I have kind of learnt to snowboard and been to Osaka on a girls weekend. We have also seen Takayama (where Jimmy lives), Sapporo and Nara. Next week we are heading to Tokyo for 4 days - bring it on! Then there is only Kyoto to tick off our list of places to go before we leave. Saving saving saving.
It is Spring here now and the weather is warming up nicely. Early Spring is definatly the most beautiful time in Japan. Even the ugly river by our flat looks beautiful! The cherry blossoms are also a call for celebration in Japan
Working hard!
. The news headlined cherry blosssom bloom dates for about the month before the bloomed and traditional Hanami (cherry blossom viewing) involves sitting with mates under the trees, drinking and eating festival foods. For the true Japanese, this is not just a few drinkies in the sunshine - this is serious! There were groups of business men in suits drinking big mugs of beer at 10am, yahooing and drinking games, eating meat on sticks and smoking! I definatly think NZ should take the Japanese appreciation for the blossoms and celebrate too - but not the smoking part! It was a lot of fun. Escape route..............in the pipeline. My contract is up on the 20th Aug and from there Ill prob stick around for a week in Nagoya organising and packing. Plan of attach is to meet up with Jo Preston and Pie (I think) for a bit of a ticky tour round Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietanam. Dans contract does not finish till the end of Sept so unfortunatly I have to leave him here. It will make a nice change me leaving him standing at an airport for once! I am so excited about our SE Asia adventures and just waiting to book my cheap flight outta here. Aim to be in London late Oct depending how the yen goes travelling Asia.
Well that must be all from me for now.
Mata-ne = see you
Big hugs
Ness xxx
P.S the pics are work pics. Peppy Kids Club Telephone Speaking and one of my kindergarten classes.
