ひさしぶり高知市！ ROLL ON SECOND YEAR.

Hello everyone. I have returned to good old Kochi at last. Today is my second day back at work, and I'm glad to be back in my city. The heat however is another thing entirely... I AM NOT glad to be melting 24/7 all over again. Hey, who am I kidding? I LOVE sweat. It's great... hrmm.

So besides sweating my arse off all day long, and taking refuge in any air conditioned areas, I'm happy to be back where I now call home. I have been away from the area for 4 weeks, on my epic summer holidays! I flew back to Scotland for 16 days of cooling down and catching up with everyone back home. I had a great time, although the time flew by and 16 days felt more like 8 in the end.

I saw my family, friends and my lovely doggie Bruno. I was happy to spend my time lounging around and going on peaceful dog walks. The weather was strangely good for Scotland but fortunately enough I just missed the bizarre heatwave that had hit the U.K a couple weeks before I arrived there. After all, I have enough heat in Japan and I did not need it at home too.

I was happy to see Dundee again and catch up on all the food I had been missing for a while (fish and chips, steak pie, my parents cooking, haggis, black pudding, dominos pizza, apple crumble, sausages and mash etc. etc.). A considerable amount of buildings had transformed into piles of rubble in the time I'd been away as Dundee is undergoing it's "renovation" or whatever's happening there..

It was weird being back in a place with people that aren't crazily well mannered. I forgot to ways of back home, and was sometimes surprised by the service I received (HEY WHAT'S THIS FANCINESS?) nahhhhhh I didn't care that much, but hey, compare it to Japan and there aint NO comparison. Japan is a extremely well mannered country in general, and even though it was odd to experience when I first arrived it's amazing how quickly you get used to folk smiling and being pleasant.

So yeah onto 2nd year now! That's it, I guess I aint a rookie anymore... I am second year.. One of wisdom? Perhaps not. But when it comes to Kochi, and perhaps especially Kochi nightlife, I think me and some of my lot have got that area well covered. We all need our areas of knowledge right?

But yeah. Time to get on with things. Eventually I may put photos here.. But let's face it, I'm lazy. So I can't promise anything ;) Laters amigos.

Bonnie Scotland.

I can't believe how quickly summer has come.

On Saturday, the 20th of July, I'll leave Kochi on the night bus to Osaka. Oh how I love the night bus... hah. And there begins my long long tedious journey back to Scotland. Eventually on Monday the 22nd, I'll arrive back in Glasgow, to meet my folks and then journey back to old Dundee.

I'm excited. It's been a year practically since I left.

Yet at the same time, it'll be weird.

I've been away so long now, and made so many new friends and got into a routine all of my own. I'll be going home to use the guest bedroom and saunter around Dundee inspecting all the changes that have occurred. I hope not too much has changed, but that's unlikely. Can't expect the world to go on pause while I travel and do my own thing.

Ah well.


Delightful british cuisine, BRING IT ON!

ひさしぶり ね！ Long time no see...

It's been... what, 2 months since my last post on here? Think so. That's a long time, and probably just shows I'm becoming more lazy if anything.

Still, here I am. Summer's crashed into our lives, even though it's technically rainy season and yet it hasn't been very rainy at all. The humidity is a pain in the arse as usual though... The sweat towels are out and I even put my air conditioning on last Sunday for the first time.

My sister has been in Japan for almost 2 weeks now. The past 9 or so days they spent with me in Kochi and now they're off travelling for a bit. It's been busy. For someone who usually just walks home after work and sits peacefully watching tv, my recent after work times have been quite hectic.

My sister has already told me she misses Kochi and she's only been away a couple of days! Though I feel quite the same when I travel to other areas of Japan too. It's weird, Kochi may be smallish but it's a friendly homely place.

In practically 4 and a bit weeks I go back to Scotland for my summer holidays. It's crazy. It also feels crazy having my wee sister kicking about my house and showing her all the joys of Kochi/Shikoku life. This Friday I head to Tokyo for a bit which should be great, well looking forward to it. Even though I'm sure I'll blow a whole load of money hah.

It's hard to believe it's already getting into late June.. Folk who aren't staying another year are figuring out their after JET plans and preparing themselves for the big move again. Whereas for me, I just need to prepare for my long summer holidays. Although I do need to prepare myself mentally for change I guess. I tend to get well settled into situations, and don't like change all that much. To be fair there's plenty of folk leaving whose departures will mean very little to me. But I will also be saying goodbye to some friends who I will miss and some who I will miss very much. Keeping in touch will be more difficult with time differences, but definitely possible. I just hope the replacements for my friends are sound nice people too. < Not used the term sound in a long time.

So things are a changing it seems. Not sure if I could stay for 3 years and see more of my friends come and go. I really do love my life here, but I shall just have to wait and see how things pan out. I'm not entirely ruling out a third year, but being someone who becomes easily bored and frustrated, I'm not sure if I could continue with the same job for 3 years running. The other main deciding factor is a certain hairy black beast back in Dundee, that goes by the name of Bruno. That boy's been like a brother to me, and it seems so wrong in many ways to abandon the lad now that he's getting older. After all the times we've gone through together, all the times he's put up with my moaning and comforted me when I've been ill or sad, how could I leave him for that long? I just don't know if I could. Not without hating myself for it.

So that's all for now. I think just witnessing the leaving JETs thinking through their plans and some perhaps regretting their decisions to leave, makes you think a bit. Makes me wonder how I'll feel next year at this time. I hope I make the right choice, but either way there will always be days when I will regret whichever decision that will be. That's just the way of it I guess. Just have to see how things are going next February I guess.

I will try and post again sometime, with less deep thoughtful moments ok?

I like the smell of the rain.

I'm not sure why, but for some reason I'm really loving the rain.

Not going to get all poetic about it or anything, but looking out onto the forested hills from the office window is oddly relaxing today. I'm liking it.

On Sunday, walking back from the tram, a thunderstorm started. It started pouring of rain and there was not one person walking apart from me. It was dark, and the thunder and lightning kicked off. I had an umbrella, but due to some weird belief that I could be hit by lightning I chose not to use it. So I walked back and got absoloutely soaked. With roaring thunder and smashing lightning. It was a great walk home. Don't think I let myself walk in the rain for fun often enough really.

There's my story of rain.

Damn I haven't been on here in a while.... I wil update soon. Yes.

Dundee from Space =D

Just thought this was pretty cool. An astronaut from Canada who's up in Space somewhere (who knows) really wants to visit Scotland, saw a clear day and took some shots from up above.

Pretty smart I think. See old Dundee there, you can make out the bridges too. Wasn't cloudy which is very odd... Hey Dundee, how you doing?

It's March FINALLY.

March is a great month. Well, great in the way that January and February are finally behind us. Normally I'd be looking forward to warm weather and the likes... But In Kochi I don't want to think about the unbearable nasty summer weather ahead.

STILL, I look forward to it getting a wee bit wamer anyway. It's no too bad at the moment anyways. I never posted in February.. the month went kinda quick I guess. Here's a quick update then.

So today is graduation day for the 3rd years at my school. This is the big one. We dress up all fancy and the likes. I'm wearing a kimono.. which is kinda exciting and I've not worn one before. But at the same time not sure if I want to hear all the reactions of everybody in school =|

Tomorrow is a friends wedding, so that should also be interesting. Lot of formal dressing going on this weekend.. And the toast reception thingy after is in the Irish Pub. YES THE IRISH PUB. So I have 2 hours to eat as much fish & chips and Irish stew etc. as I can. I also have set myself a target of about 5 pints of beer, lets say 2 Guinness and 3 Kilkenny, and a couple of Magners Pear cider. When you live in Japan, especially in Kochi, this sort of opportunity to drown yourself on drinks from back home doesn't come up very often. Plus, I've not had cider in over 7 months now which is just plain madness I tell ye.

AND it's 3 months until my amazing wee sister comes to Japanland to visit with her amigos. I'm super excited for this. It's going to be great. And just over 4 months until I go home for my summer holidays, good times indeed. But before then I have a whole bundle of stuff going on, Kyoto at the end of this month and a visit to the tropical islands of Okinawa in May to visit my friend from back home. It's like the Hawaii of Japan they say.

Aye It's All Signed.

So on Tuesday I signed and handed in my form. The form of decisions. THE form.

And of course, I'd already made my decision to stay 2 years some time ago. So really it wasn't a big deal. Though it did feel weird seeing the dates on the letter "Until July 30th 2014". The time here seems to be going quite fast anyway, I mean it's already February tomorrow! Madness.

I'm looking forward to the weather getting a bit warmer, and for it to start getting darker later so my evenings seem longer.

There's been no classes this week. The third years are finished school now until graduation at the start of March. And my second years are on work experience. So I've actually been doing some Japanese studying =O YES. I am shocked too.

And now I'm debating whether to continue my Breaking Bad marathon tonight and get it finished off... (only 5 episodes to go! Well, until the second half of series 5 comes out) or to go out for a couple of beers at my local place... I can see this being another lazy tv night I think.

How much tv will I have watched by the time I return to Scotland? A LOT.

So, Christmas in Kochi

 

Yeah it seems Blogger wants to let me use photos today, awfy nice of it. And since I'm in the mood, I should do this, why not?! So at the start of December there was a winter lights lantern type festival on at Kochi Castle. So me and my friend went along to check it out. Turned out to be pretty smart indeed. There was like SO MANY candles and lanterns it was crazy, and very pretty.

 

 

 

In the park beside the castle they had this made out of candles. Thought that was pretty smart.

 

 

It was obvious folk had put A LOT of work into the whole set-up.

 

 

And this festival was on two weekends in a row. I feel very sorry for whatever poor souls had to keep lighting all those wee candles...

 

 

We got to hold lanterns too, like the festival in October. And a manny was determined to take our photos beside the castle. Looks pretty good though, so alright then.

 

 

I bought a lot of Christmas decorations. My predecessor had left some, but I wanted my own. Christmas decorations are sort of a personal thing in my opinion anyway. I used the tree though haha and I think I did a pretty good job indeed.

 

 

I also decided to make mulled wine. I was considering making gingerbread men or something, but cooking biscuits or cakes inside a microwave that has an "oven" in it too, I decided against. Mulled wine was easier to go about, plus my supervisor had never tried it before.

 

 

I made many litres of the mulled wine, maybe like 3 litres. Gave my supervisor a good chunk of it, then sort of mostly drank the rest myself. I made more for another Christmas party later... and pretty much drank all that too..

 

So yeah, that was pretty much my preparations for Christmas. Besides finding presents for folk that weren't too big or heavy, and of course buying Christmas presents for myself. I declared my early Christmas day to be December the 23rd, as in the day I would leave for heading to Korea. I opened my presents with my family on Skype (awwww I hear you say haha). I ate a ridiculous amount of food, like cheese and crackers for lunch, lots of chocolate and a steak for tea.

 

Was all pretty good, and a good start to the Christmas holidays overall.

Good day.

That title there pretty much sums it up. But none the less I'll go on to explain further.

Today is a pretty good day. It's like January, and the sun's a blazing. I like that. It may be chilly here in winter, but there's only like a couple of cloudy days each month. Which is nice. Especially when you're used to Scotland and it's cloud obsession..

Also, I have no classes today. And neither do any of the other teachers because the kids are all off doing stuff. So everyone is pretty relaxed, and the office is nice and calm.

I've also started drawing more, and writing pointless stuff for things I probably won't get around to doing. But still, it's fun.

I just came back from lunch too. Lunch is of course a wonderful time of day. Went to my local, got fed A LOT. It was good. Came back, and spoke to the two Golden Retrievers that live near the school. Since you probably know me, you'll know that I love dogs. And petting some insanely cute retrievers on a sunny day after an amazing lunch, makes this a good day.

It's Thursday too, so I have an Enkai (drinking party) with my teachers tomorrow night WOOOO! Should be a laugh. No, it WILL be a laugh as always.

I am due to clean the teachers toilets this week... but think I might leave that until tomorrow. Wouldn't want to ruin the atmosphere of the good day now would I?

A KOCHRISTMAS!

Yeah that doesn't really work.. Kochi... Christmas. You get my point.

On a side note, or even a pre-note before I start this, someone is really falling behind in cleaning that fish tank in the office. I can see green. And shadows within sort of swimming around... Poor fish.

So anyways! Before heading off on my trip to Korea, I attempted at making Christmas as normal as possible. As normal as it can be when I'm in Japan. I listen to Radio 1 a lot, and even from early December they were playing their Christmas songs. Weird to think that was like a month ago now...

On the 8th of December I decided I wanted to get all my Christmas stuff up. So my friend came over, and we put up my Christmas tree and decorated the house. Whilst drinking mulled wine and listening to good old Christmas music.

OK BLOGGER, WHY are you not letting me upload photos?!?! WHY?!

Fine.

I shall deal with this later when I return home. Let's put this tale on pause for now ;)

Back to work I go

Yep. After all the "WOOOOO HOLIDAYS!!" excitement, it's back to work for Pam. Of course, wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't managed to catch one mutant cold the day I returned to Kochi >=|

So here I am, sitting in my office, eyes all nice and bloodshot, coughing like a maniac. It's fun. Super fun. WOOOOOOO! At least I don't really have to talk to anyone until tomorrow... I HOPE.

Last weekend was probably the quietest weekend I've had since coming here. I was attempting to rest away my disease haha BUT I did buy a Playstation 3. Which was obviously the highlight of my weekend XD That and my sister and her friends have booked their flights for coming over to Japan in June YEAAAH!

So that's exciting. I should really write a bit about my Christmas holidays on here... and I will. Probably today tbh, since I don't think I have much else to do. And I need something to distract me from coughing, otherwise my co-workers will be quarantining me very soon.