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.

T is for TOKYO

Yes. That is a fact you know.

SO, as I still do not have the internet in my apartment just yet I have decided to use my time at work to put some posts on this here blog of mine.

And I shall start at the start, waaaay back in July 2012- technically only about 4 and a half weeks ago, just feels much longer- me and the rest of the JET crew headed for Tokyo. We were put on a tiny plane to Paris, that managed to take almost 2 whole hours. It couldn't even hold our hand luggage it was just THAT small.

On reaching Paris, we had a good few hours to wait. So the 17/18 of us Edinburgh departees hung around a lot and had some Japanese beer (which I still never paid Keri back for... SORRY KERI!) Then we were on the plane to Tokyo for 11 hours of fun. I was next to 2 Japanese women who kept falling asleep on me and my tv was broken. Yay.

We eventually made it to TOKYOOOO!!!!

 The Dark Knight Rises posters in JAPANESE

At Shibuya, the massive crossing placey

I just like how everything is turned into a cute cartoon character in Japan...

SHIBUYA again =D

The famous crossing itself!

Yes, we went to an English pub. But it was good, and we were happy.



So that was really out first two nights in Tokyo. The first night was a stumble around a bit of Shinjuku for food, then it was out to Shibuya the second night, and it was great =D 

By the third day I had become extremely tired of being talked to... All these workshops and lecture things seemed to go on FOREVER. I fear my attention span is merely the problem as it's like that of a 5 year old apparently...

So I used my laptop until it died (my charger had already been sent to Kochi, clever Pam). Then we went to the British Embassy for our welcome reception. It was really good. The food was less impressive to be honest, compared to the meal they'd given us at the hotel the previous night, but they put on a Taiko performance for us in their lovely garden and there was plenty of drink.

After the reception, me and bunch of us decided we wanted to go to the hotel where Lost in Translation was filmed. The Park Hyatt or whatever it was called. It turned out to only be a few blocks from our hotel, HANDY.

It was a fancy joint like, they even had a Jazz band on too! Which was good since we had to pay 2000 yen each just to get in...

There was pretty epic views over Tokyo, and I'm not for using the word EPIC normally...

... there were ridiculously in-depth toilet functions....

.... the bill came up to literally hundreds of pounds between the lot of us....

.... but it was worth every penny. WE SAT WHERE BILL MURRAY SAT. Worth it.

Then it was off to Kochi the next day... The plane ride was quick and painless. We watched Pokemon, and had a mini breakdown of uncontrollable laughter for quite some time.

AAAAHHHHHHH New Post.

Pam is here, yep. BUT don't expect any photos yet.. I still don't have my internet set up in my apartment, but fingers crossed for this week!!

SO I arrived in Japan in one piece, and I have been at work for... 8 days so far. So I'm settling in, getting used to the heat a bit (my hair might state otherwise) and eating a hell of a lot of rice and noodles.

I shall leave my wonderful glorious tales of Tokyo and my first week in Kochi until I manage to get photos up too =D Or it's just not the same.

STORY FOR TODAY. I was taking a wee trot around the 100 yen shop, and I casually turned the corner and there was a wee boy walking towards me. Said wee boy looks up SCREAMS and RUNS AWAY (still screaming) O.O Yes. I am the terrifying local foreign girl. You may never see hair like this again. I felt slightly disturbed for the rest of my trip in the shop and made sure to keep an eye out for that boy...

But yeah, once I get photos up I can update a'body with my joyful tales. Fortunately that's the worst reaction I've had to myself so far. Now I must get back to pretending to work...