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.