You Scumbag, You Maggot...

YES, it's nearing Christmas. This must be the strangest Christmas season I have experienced so far in my 22 years. Not for any one reason in particular, just mainly because I'm in Japan.

Recently I've been getting in the mood. Even more than normal it seems.. Maybe that's because I'm in a country that doesn't reeeeaaally do Christmas, and for the first time, I won't be spending it at home with my family.

So please enjoy the best Christmas song ever, Fairytale of New York.

 

If that doesn't put you in the mood for Christmas then nothing will! Unless you're American. Then apparently you might not even know this song. Which is just A CRIME TO CHRISTMAS. You big anti-santa.

 

 

 

Tomorrow is the day I put up my Christmas tree and decorations. So, I'm quite excited about this. YES. I have downloaded my Christmas music, all the good ones of course. And I have my litres of mulled wine that I made, and spent a lot of last night sampling. AND I got all my presents and Christmas cards sent off this week. So I am sorted.

 

PLUS (more yes) It's only 2 weeks on Sunday til I set off for my Christmas holidays to Korea. I am extremely excited. Even got Hogmany all planned oot, with tickets for the countdown party at Universal Studios Japan. 

 

 

 

But there are things I'll miss about Christmas at home, obviously my family and Bruno. But like, Christmas pudding.... And Christmas TV.... I'm even missing seeing the flood of Christmas adverts we get on TV back home at his time of year. And CRACKERS. Only just came to me yesterday when I was walking along the corridor at school.... "Japan... Doesn't have crackers."

 

Still, I'll distract myself by going on holiday over Christmas. Even if at the moment, every Christmas song I hear on Radio 1 gets me strangely emotional O.o This must be a sure sign of mental issues.

 

 

Let's end here for now, on another favourite of mine. Stop the Cavalry. And... it seems that I have many favourite Christmas songs.... and films. Gotta get some Muppets Christmas Carol and Bad Santa into my free time sometime soon!

 

 



FROSTY?

The Snowman?!

No. Not quite.

BUT, it is the first day I left for work to find the ground somewhat frosty like. Not by Dundee standards. I'm not talking put-your-foot-on the-ground-and-fall-on-your-arse type frost, just a sprinkling here and there. But that was enough for my throat to think "Hey, let's step this here cold you've got up a notch!". Thanks.

So I made it to work, and realised soon enough, today would be that day where I lose my voice. Sure I have one severe voiceless day a year. And today was it. And what day was today? Only the day I had to do listening tests for 6 CLASSES!

So yeah, I dreaded the afternoon coming all day, but thankfully after lunch I managed to get that voice back to work. With a combination of strange Japanese painkillers and sore throat things. Though at the moment it seems everyone in the office has a similar disease... a fun winter ahead I'm thinking.

But it is difficult to make banana paper.

Yes. Apparently so. Came into a class this afternoon to find this random sentence written on the board... I have no idea why the kids were learning about banana paper (?) in english class..

Some random photos? Sure.

Was looking through all the photos on my phone, and realised there's a bunch of random ones I've not put up anywhere. They may or may not be of any interest to you, but I like them.

So a few weeks ago, maybe a month who knows, me, Alistair and Adam went to Kochi castle for some festival type thing they were having. We had no idea what they were doing, but when we got there we were given these big lanterns to carry. Then there was candles lit ALL the way up the many levels of steps to the castle. It was pretty smart. We were pretty happy with the lanterns, spent quite a bit of time taking photos of ourselves with them, but it was hard with the darkness.

 

Then inside the entrance bit to go up to the castle, they had loads of these amazing wee lights! It looked really smart. After this we realised not much was actually going on at the castle, but the lantern holding and light stuff was worth the journey up the hill again anyways.

 

 

At my schools English camp, a couple of my students taught us how to make these amazing ORIGAMI SPINNING THINGS =D

 

And yeah, my no dinosaurs sign was put on Facebook. But still. How much do I love this sign?!

A LOT.

 

Then there's these weird fruit things we have here. The first one I had wasn't great. I was very confused as it tasted of nothing, so I chucked it. My supervisor gave me one later and it was brilliant.

 

In the supermarket across the road from my place, there was these Pumpkin Pans. So like, pumpkin bread bun/cake thingys. Thought it looked pretty interesting. And YES it was AMAZING =D Now it makes me sad Halloween's over and they don't have the same ones in anymore...

 

One day leaving school there was a really nice sunset over the baseball field. In fact, most days theres a really nice sunset. This one was just particularly nice.

 

At my schools festival, this was the aftermath of a day of my students wanting me to buy everything. I think I did a reasonable job trying to please everybody. I will have some of this food for a while... MAYBE.

 

And then, after my friends at my local bar taking me for spicy Ramen, I discovered a whole new liking for the food! After a while of saying "I don't like Ramen" I suddenly did. And even made it at home, with loads of Kimchi thrown in. SO GOOD.

 

And there you have it. My random photos wit some random explanations. Ah Japan. Random is a suitable word for you.

Eh ken its been a while...

AYE maties. Been a bit lazy on the old blog front recently. Time just seems to be going ridiculously quickly, I mean it's like only a month and a bit til Christmas. MADNESS.

Been quite busy recently, well weekends are always mental, but during the weeks have been pretty busy too. Had my schools festival last weekend, so I had to work the weekend and missed the "all you can eat beef and all you can drink sake" festival up in the mountains. One of my students got 1st place in a speech contest, which was great. We practised A LOT.

Christmas holidays are all booked up, so well looking forward to that. Listening to Radio 1 at the moment. I do this a lot now, just keeping up-to-date with music and the world back home. I wouldn't want to come back all lost and confused.

So there's a few things I miss from back home of course. I mean of course my family and friends. But otherwise.... (in no particular order)

1. Wetherspoons. My dear lovely cheap Counting House. I miss you. I miss the cheap drinks, the beer & burger deal and the banter with the local drunk old men. And generally just being able to sit for hours chatting, with no hassle.

2. Walking Bruno. I miss going round the block on our well trodden route, going down to the green, walking along by the grafitti wall and the vision building, chatting with all our dog walker friends and getting some fresh air. I miss taking massive de-tours to avoid the cannibal and his man-eating dog and the wonderful chatter with Denzel.

3. Normal shops. As much as I like some... SOME Japanese shops, I do miss the joys of H&M, Primark and all the rest.

4. The insane Dundee/Scottish/British pub and club thing. No-one does it quite like us in the old UK, I'm seeing that now. Clubs here are not so fun. As dancing just doesn't seem to exist...

5. And lastly.. just general food. Baked beans on toast. Chips (NOT FRIES). Stews. Haggis. Dominos. My folks cooking. As much as I love Japanese food, sometimes you just want something normal.

SO that's my list for now. I mean of course there's wee things here and there. And I miss my Bruno. BRRRUUUUUNNNOOOOOO. Yes.

Rain.

So Kochi has spared us from wet feet and flooded pavements for a good few weeks. But today, it decided we'd had enough of sunshine and nice days. And here comes the rain. As in like, the past few weeks worth of rain in one day O.o

It's pretty intense.

And now it's getting a bit colder, and I'm still wearing a t-shirt because really it's still like 20oC. But I need to find some warmer clothes soon.. but finding decent work clothes in Japan is proving difficult. I can find plenty smart t-shirts and weird casual clothes, but plain shirts? HARD.

AND I just learnt that it's all because there's a typhoon passing by, so Kochi is back in the red warning zone. Yay.

DROUGHT

Yes. Drought IS too extreme a word. But, we have had no rain at all in going on a week here in Kochi City. This is very strange.

It also seems that the weather forecasting function on my phone has permanently set itself to rain so it needn't do any work ever again. Blazing sun, wonderful weather for the past while, BUT my phone says it's still raining.

The rivers are actually getting scarily dry. Meanwhile I read back home is getting floods and stuff...


The other night at Sanctuary Bar, an International bar in Kochi City, I tried Spirytus. 96% stuff. 96%!!! MADNESS. It was literally alcohol in a bottle. It was a bit burny.

 On the way to see the second last baseball game of the season on Sunday, there was a pretty amazing sunset over the river. AHH KOCHI, so pretty when it aint raining.

AND today, for lunch, I had a hotdog wrapped in a roll with sauce on a stick. It was random indeed. But good, yeah good. Every lunch I go to the supermarket I try something random from the bakery. It is good, normally at least!



I have loads more photos and stuff to put up and write about. I just need to stop getting distracted by the internet...  If that's possible.

Better Second Time Round

Yeah, school that is.

I'm enjoying working at Ino Shogyo, or Ino Kencho as it is also called apparently.

Ok, so to start with, I HATE the amount of school/teacher/pupil praising and excitement and stupid stories that are getting posted every other minute on Facebook. YES others, I am sure it's all great and you love your students. YES I am sure that they love you and they're just so cute and they make you so happy and they have big smiles and they are just like the best thing everrrr. BUT RIGHT, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

SO I am posting my little bit about how I like MY school on my blog. That way all of Facebook won't have to see my addition to the praise club. I'm at Senior High, so I don't have a bunch of tiny wee kids treating my like a "celebrity" as everyone keeps talking about happening to them. What I have is a bunch of teenagers who want to sleep a lot..

School has only been back for two weeks, and I am already getting to know the kids. They're a good laugh. I'm remembering names and all. GO ME!

Today one of the girls in my class who doesn't normally do a lot said my activity was fun. Hmm yeah, FUN *smug face* So I was happy. I had 3 kids, who don't normally bother, getting really excited about the activity.

So that's it. That's all I want to say for now. My kids really like me, obviously because I am just THAT amazing hahaaa and I'm happy. I'm not going to throw it all over Facebook because I don't need to.

SAMURAI LIFE

So back in my first week here, I decided on the Sunday to go hunt down the Samurai Residences. I'm generally good with directions, so I enjoyed roaming around the back streets looking for this place. Plus the backstreets ALL seem to have wee rivers, and the fish are proper amazing. They're MASSIVE and nobody seems to be interested at all, just me stopping.. staring... at... fish... BIG FISH.

I managed to find the Samurai Residences anyway, and wandered in then panicked as I had that sudden feeling I was just breaking into someones house. I came across the woman who worked there though, which was good. She knew as much English as I do Japanese, so stumbling along I learnt a bit about it all.

We sat chatting for a bit and then it turned out she somehow knew one of the English teachers I work with! I just recently found out that what she was trying to say is that they are sister-in-laws. This phrase I did not know and presently do still not know.

Old Samurai Residences in Kochi City

The bedrooms of the Samurai

The cute wee garden, it was raining, as always...

The kitchen were those Samurai cooked their foooood

Me and a big Japanese umbrella

The woman told me to sit there for a photo. Being an obedient foreigner, I did.

I woke up strangely early one morning, at like 5am. It wasn't even raining. Anyhow, caught this pretty smart sun rise over the hills by my supermarket.

Ryukyu, a Kochi vegetable that is the stems of... some other type of vegetable. That's me chopping it all up, the other teachers at school were surprised to hear that I didn't get any reactions from touching it. I'm nor sure what this Ryukyu does, but fortunately it doesnt concen me!

The end result. Bacon that turned out to be pork, cheapo burger cheese and Ryukyu. It was actuallly extremely good! (oh and shop bought sushi of course!)

YAKISOBAAAA

Where I go when there's a Tsunami. Like the word choice there? Not IF, WHEN. But the walls look reasonably well built... It'd be fiiiiine.

My train station.

Still at the train station, getting daaaarrrrk

So yeah, there's another wee bit of life in Japan from Pam. There will be more. OH so much more.

First Sights of Kochi- The CASTLE

So on my very first weekend, I decided to spend it wandering around the city by myself. NOT because I'm a total loner, but because I wanted to find my bearings and see stuff. One of my first stops was Kochi Castle.

Kochi Castle sits on top of this hill, which is sort of like a park, and it's bonnie aye.

So it's like one of the only original castles left in Japan. Most of them have been ebuilt..

Looking out over the city!

 Me standing on the tiny wee walkway around the sides of the castle.

The rain moving in. Back when I hadn't realised the full extent of Kochi rain...

This was at the bottom of the hill by the castle, nice.

The inside of the castle, on the top floor. There was many MANY floors, all with tiny narrow but extremely steep wooden steps. And we had to take our shoes off, so I was scurrying around in my bare feet.

Lilly Pond by the castle. It's pretty, not much more to say.

So that was my visit to Kochi Castle, a mere couple of days after arriving. I spent a good while in there, and I had just got my fancy  smart-yphone the day before, so I sat for a good hour in the top level of the castle playing with my phone. Ruining a cultured atmosphere with mindless technology once again hahaha

The Day it Didn't Rain

Yesterday it didn't rain. Ah, it was amazing indeed. Now I'm sitting here eating my Japanese coco-pops and trying to watch Spaced over the noise of yet more mental rain. Well at least we had one dry day. 

So yesterday I had a summer special holiday day off, which meant I got an amazing long sleep, until of course it got SO hot I couldn't sleep anymore.

Went shopping, then met up with folk to go hunt down a pizza place. And it was GOOD. First pizza since arriving in Japan. One of the few non-fish, non-rice, non-noodle dishes I've had WOOOooo

We also saw a Dog Office on the way there.. Dogs in suits on swivel chairs using desktop computers. Wow.

And when I got home, I put the tv on while waiting to shout Happy Birthday to Denise down the phone. Turned out there was a biggish earthquake in the Phillipines and a mini-tsunami was on it's way. It flashed on every channel, and I even watched some sort of tsunami-cam waiting to see what happened. Nothing happened.

Stop it.

Dear Kochi,

I see you have many trees. I see you are pretty much all covered in greenness. BUT would you just please STOP RAINING!!!!! The rivers are full. The trees are fine. QUIT IT. CEASE THY RAIN. STOP PISSING ON THE REGION!!

My hair can not handle this. If you would like me to disturb your citizens with what WILL end up an afro, please continue.

I would love to go for a walk without an umbrella.

I would like not to get wet feet for a while.

I would like to sit on my balcony after work and drink a beer.

I would like to not have to be running around my apartment all day opening and closing windows.

I would like to not be woken up again by the LOUDEST rain ever imaginable.

I would like some peace from the rain.

Thank you, from an ever-soaked Pam.

EXPLORATION

On the Thursday night, as in the day after arriving, we met a bunch of the other JETs which was nice. Though I still felt pretty dead in general, and had just met a million teachers at my school then loads more folk. My head was draining out everything it heard, I probably remembered about 10/40 names that day...

Anyways, that night we saw the little Harimayabashi Bridge all lit up. It was first time actually in the centre of the city, but it good to see a few things that night.

There's some story behind this bridge... Eh... There be a man and a woman and something to do with a bridge. They did tell us at some point... But I might not have been listening so much.

Still pretty though.

Ah there be the man and the woman, in small statue form. Oh and me.

The wee trees around the bridge.

 I used my Satureday to go wandering around Kochi. I wanted to get to know the place and to know where I was going in general. Walking around is always the best way. At the train station there are three massive statues of famous Kochi people, well Samurais and stuff. Ryoma is there too, he's quite famous in Japan.

 Palm trees lining the river. We found an amazing outside bar/eating joint by the river last week. Need to go there again..

PACHINKO! SO many Pachinko places in one city, madness. I just love the wee gambling dogs.

 Obiyamachi Shopping Arcade. It seemed totally MASSIVE the first time I walked down it, but now it just seems smaller and smaller each time =D haha          

And to finish off, I don't even like Hello Kitty much whatsoever but it sitting on top of a mini Harimayabashi was way too cute to pass on photo opportunites.



Eating Japan

I plan to eat Japan. All of it. And chances are I won't have all that much choice, since finding any (using typical foreigner talk here) NORMAL FOOD is impossible. But obviously in my first week, any rice or noodle dishes were a new experience and there was a hell of a lot I hadn't tried.

On my first Friday, we managed to get a phone set up for me. I was INSANELY happy. And that literally has been the internet I've only had in my flat since I got here. Hopefully that will change soon. But yes, so while my phone was getting set up, my supervisor took me for tea out at an Okonomiyaki restaurant.

It had the wee hot plate on the middle and the whole experience amused me greatly. It's like a pancake type thing you make with cabbage and stuff, looks weird as anything when it arrives, but it was brilliant.

Cooking the pork first... with that bowl of weird looking stuff.

Then we mixed said weird looking stuff up and put it on the table.. and pork on top

Then flipping it over another time (poor pork was a bit overdone haha)

and with some seaweed flakes, dried bonito and lots of Okonomiyaki sauce, it was GREAT

And phones are extremely expensive in Japan. Just want to put that out there... BUT totally worth it, unless I don't actually have unlimited internet of course... Then I might be out on the streets...

Arriving in the Land of Exiles (aka KOCHI)

Ha yeah, we arrived at Kochi Airport at... some point on Wednesday 1st August. We saw we all had people waiting for us with signs, ready to take us away... that was slightly worrying as it started to sink in.

The Principal, my supervisor and one of the other English teachers were waiting for me with an impressively large framed sign, awww. Then the Principal took us for lunch to get Tataki, a special Kochi Tuna dish. Its like raw, just seared on the outside and with a special sauce. It was great. The chopstick pressure was high though... My sudden realisation that I hadn't used any in quite some time.

After this everything was a little bit of a blur... It was hot. Humid. I was tired. My head kept going over WHY I was in a car with these two random Japanese people... Yes. They took me to my new apartment and then the supermarket and then other things happened, gas man, electricity man.... Too much. I FELT DEAD.　Eventually I got some time to myself, and I made my first meal (sort of) in my new home.

I decided to unpack AS QUICK AS POSSIBLE. Or I never would. As that happens any time I go anywhere, and I was not living out of a suitcase forever.

Love the Tatami rooms, very Japanese. And me spreading my junk across the walls =D

The view from my balcony. Nice wee rivery thing there, lots of mountains and trees around.

The supermarket. Could it be ANY nearer to my flat? Not really. It's perfect.

Me with my Udon and Mochi for desert, yaaaaas. And drink of course.. watching the Olympics. All in Japanese, but it was CLOSE to being at home haha

The lovely sign my school made for me. Still sitting there.

One of the first drinks I bought in Kochi. I got quite excited by the idea of Rolling Stones beer!! My fellow teachers didn't quite get it. And it was a little awkward filling my basket with cans with them standing there..

And that was my first day in Kochi-Ken, in Kochi-Shi, in my new wee home.