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.