I Have Emerged From Underground

Yes, I have finally come to visit my page after a long absence. Blame Facebook, and relocating across country, and searching for purpose. It all takes up a lot of time!

I am currently typing here because I am temping at reception of a Real Estate office, and I am bored beyond bored. Just the nightmare I had been hoping to avoid. The saving grace is that it is a well paying nightmare, so I will stick it out, til the end of the day, and then tomorrow I am going somewhere else, so meeting new people and learning new tricks should keep me going for another couple of days.

Thank goodness for my hobbies! I just wish my hobbies were more portable though.

The Madness continues!

I can't keep track of my days... too much is happening! More goodbyes, tears, social events, last ikebana class, last night in my apartment, packing boxes, cleaning like a mad thing, meeting new faces that I will never see again, trying to get excited about visiting China while wondering if my boxes will ever get picked up and shipped back home... oh and amongst all that, getting dressed up in yukata and going to see some fireworks! Yep, it's been a busy week.

Oh and did I mention I went to USJ? Well, I went to USJ, it was heaps of fun :-)
I have run out of brainpower and words, so let the pics do the talking!

We arrived at the Universal Studios globe... which Emz very brainily points out it actually rotating the opposite way to which our planet does in reality... of course I would never even think to ask the question, I just smile and say 'cheese!'.

Me and Hitomi take some time out on the hood of this retro cab...

Emz and I get dressed up by the lovely ladies at Ohara Ikebana school and do our last ikebana design...

Full view of our yukata... doing our bestest Japanese pose, showing exactly what we have learned over the past year or two.

And cos once in a week just isn't enough, I get my own yukata on for a night of HANABI!!! for the rest of the world not in Japan, that means... fireworks festival, wooohooo

My only photo of the fireworks... it was pretty sweet!

Preparing to Move on is a Monumental thing....

After several weeks of notable absence (blame Facebook folks, I have become addicted.. You should join!!!) I thought I would drop by my own blog and put in an update on the million things going on in my life right now...

What happened to June I wonder??? While it was busy flying by, I was doing the following things.

• Contacting my successor and trying to sell her my furniture... to no avail. Apparently although she has officially accepted the position, she's not sure if she'll come if her boyfriend doesn't get placed close by. This continues to be my main cause of stress and loss of sleep. I recently found they are trying to find a place for her boyfriend to teach in the Kobe area - and she still hasn't told me if she is going to come to the apartment. I feel the potential for a beautiful predecessor/successor relationship is well and truly over... humph.
• A visit to Miyajima and Hiroshima. I caught up with an ex-JET named Chris and he showed me around town. I saw the Miyajima shrine at night (beauuuudiful!!!) and went for a hike Mt. Misen the next day. Hot and humid, but just gorgeous - I felt like Alice in Wonderland!

Miyajima by night.... and by day....

on the way to Mt. Misen, I found a very nice rock, so I decided we should get a photo together!

• International Day at Suzi's High School - it was fun, the kids were great, and I got to see the kids I did International Day with last year.. it was a very touching day!

Some of my girls from last year's international day... happy reunion!
Boy in the middle is Itten. He was a student at my first school, Kobe Ikuta, a real character!
Aira princess. She was in the brass band with me at Kobe Ikuta. She played percussion.
My group of kids from this year... funny kids! The kid on the far left, Toshi, has a great model walk!

• Following International Day, Enkai with my current school. Beer was consumed, german food (I kid you not) was eaten, and Karaoke was sung. Let's just say my Vice Principal is a BIG fan.... I sang Danny Boy with the groundsman... :-)

Masako helps me sing 'The Rose' which we reprise the next week at her place after dinner.
The groundsman and I did a fabulous rendition of Danny Boy. It was the highlight for me!
Mr Hamada is completely in his element singing Enka with a big smile. He was like a kid with candy!!! I am so in love!!!

• Visited Kyoto with Emz, met up with Ayumi,Yoshi and Maiko there the next day.. and then went mad bargain hunting at the summer sales in Nagoya on Sunday... OMG!! It was crazy, but I got a really awesome skirt for 2500yen, down from over 8000yen... nice! Oh and I was treated to a tasty breakfast care of Mrs. Kumagai, who makes the best tamagoyaki I have ever eaten, and local spicy chicken wings for dinner... oh man they were delicious!

Photo courtesy of Ayumi... can't remember the name of this place... but it's supposed to give you lots of good luck!!!
Emz and I are about to embark on all you can eat Shabu-shabu madness!!!!

Okay, so that was June... pretty busy eh? No wonder I had a bit of a nervous breakdown in the first week of July... but I recovered marvelously in time for the huge SAYONARA party that Reegan organised on behalf of us lazy leaving JETs. It started off in a club called Spark, drinks and snacks, music, card signing, chatting, laughing, posing for photo's, and watching a slideshow made by Dustin... I laughed and cried... and got beer spilt on my new skirt - but I found out it's wonderfully quick-drying, and poor Dave, the owner of the beer was very apologetic, so no harm done! After that, we went to a dance club (I can't remember the name, I just followed people ok?) and danced like crazy with everyone until the wee hours, when we got sleepy and dehydrated and decided to come home.. I squished in a cab with Adrian, Steph, Alison and Leigh... cozy!! Next day I went with Farah to have dinner with the office lady at my school, Masako. She invited us to her house. We met her friend, Hitomi Fujiki, an awesome and really really funny lady. We had a great time. Masako pulled out her guitar later in the evening and we sang "The Rose" and "Over the Rainbow". She's a really talented player!!!

My new top I wore with my new skirt.... lucky it was a hot night!
Me and moon at the party. She wrote a gorgeous note on my card. I will miss you Moon, take care of Sae for me!
My siblings in Japan. Big bro and neighbour Addaz, and Suzi, my wonderful, wise and funny sister.

Other things of note that have happend in July so far... Moon came with me to meet Sae, the gorgeous girl I have been tutoring for the last 18 months. She will take over for me when I go. They seem to get along very well, and I think they will do well together. Now that is taken care of, I just have to stop myself from crying my eyes out from sadness at our last lesson next Friday.....
On July 12th, I hosted my last ever Thursday night dinner, with my small crowd of regulars who had enjoyed these dinners at my place in the past... and a couple of special guests. I wrote a little song that I sang for them. It seemed to be received very well... Caroline even took a video on her camera and posted it on her Facebook profile... woo hoo. Me making mistakes on piano is now up on the internet for all to see...

Most recently, Caroline and I went to OKINAWA!!! Woohooo!
We managed to miss the typhoon by one day (it had flown through the day before). We enjoyed on and off weather, in one day it would alternate between hot and sunny and rainy about 3 or 4 times. So we enjoyed overheating and getting a but sunburned (ok that was just me) AND witnessing some awesome thunderstorms. We arrived at our designated hotel and nearly died from shock from the fact that they could even fit a semidouble bed in a room that small. After one night, we decided to ring around and find a nicer hotel in town - and due to cancellations from the Typhoon on Friday, we got one - with twin beds, and a shower curtain in the bathroom, oh and an actual lobby. And it didn't smell funny either, which was nice :-)
This sums up our feeling about our Okinawan holiday... happiness and bliss!!!

Yesterday was my last day at school. I don't have to come back, so I have a week to do all my packing and moving. I am relieved. And I am also hoping like an insane woman that my big items of furniture that have not garnered interest will be sold in the next week.

Well, that's caught everyone up on the big details. Now, if you would just cave in and join Facebook, you could see all my photos rather than just a few...
xoxo

Tell Me Why I don't like Mondays....

I should be showering and getting to work... but I am making myself potentially very late by typing this instead. I mean really, what am I thinking?
A lot has been happening, so I haven't typed up here for nearly a month - shock!!!

Recently I went to my friend Hitomi's place for a bbq. I invited Moon to come along to, and she made some delicious chicken with a really tasty sauce... Moon style Indian Curry!
It was great to meet Hitomi's parents and cute sister Nagisa, who is also a really great dancer. We saw pictures in the house and we all said, oh my god is this you?!!!! Gorgeous, she looks like a professional ballerina in the photos! Me and Hitomi were laughing about how we both gave up ballet when we were kids...

Here are a couple of photo's with Nagisa, Hitomi and Moon. I forgot to take pictures of everyone else cos I was having so much fun!!!!
Time to get back to reality :-(
Call me prejudiced, but I don't like Mondays.

In memory of a smelly dog that I loved.

His name was Zack. He was probably one of the dimmest dogs you could've met. It didn't matter how much you washed him, he was always a bit stinky, and loved to roll in Mum's garden cos the dirt made him happy. He was a real dork of a dog, really friendly, and at times ignored by other dogs who considered themselves too cool to be his friend. He had big floppy ears, his feet were too big for his body and he seemed to always be tripping over them. His tail never seemed to work quite right after an encounter with our pony shortly after he came home with us 12 years ago. He would eat just about anything - even plastic bags that smelled like stinky fish-bait. He had a terribly annoying habit of lying right across the front doorway, so you were forced to trip or leap over him everytime you were leaving the house, usually in a hurry. But he became a fixture, in fact, I think it will be strange to go home and find him not there on the door mat. And it was so hard to scold him cos he would look at you with those big brown eyes looking sweet and sorry although you knew he would just keep on being in the way.

I am by no means a person who goes ga-ga over animals, but Zack was a member of the family that I took for granted would be around and looked forward to seeing on my visits home. My sister and I called him Zachary because we were obessed with the movie called 'Hocus-Pocus' that had a black cat called Thackery in it. We couldn't very well give our little black puppy a cat's name, but Zachary was a variation that suited him well. What else can I say? I'll miss the sweet natured, stinky old thing. Bye Zacky.

Mother's Day... plus 24 hours, oops!

Just wanted to put in a picture of the Mother's Day Ikebana I made last Wednesday. It doesn't exactly travel in the mail very well, so poor Ma had to make do with the picture over email, and a slightly muddle-headed phonecall on the Sunday as I woke up about 20 minutes before we talked!

Happy Mother's Day from across the ocean! Now I can't think too much about it or I might cry, waah!

Phew!

Wow, keeping my blog updated when I can't do it during work hours is hard work. Don't know how people do it! Quite a few things going on, one of the main things is that we had a nice bunch of consecutive public holidays, affectionately known as Golden Week.

I went to the Island of Shikoku with Hermina. First we went to Iya Valley. We went on a gorgeous little boat ride in nearby Oboke, stayed at a little guesthouse run by these dear little old lady who couldn't stop apologising that she didn't speak English, and walked across the Kazurabashi vine bridge (reinforced with steel wires - and thank goodness cos there were at least 40 people on the bridge at any given time). We also ate local soba noodles, udon, relaxed at an onsen, and last but not least, went surfing at Ikumi beach! It was the first time I had surfed since my first attempt at 10 years of age. And it's not like riding a bike at all, didn't remember anything at all, but it was great to be playing around in the ocean again - it actually made me kinda homesick even though the beach doesn't bear much resemblance to the ones back home.

Also, this weekend was jam packed full of fun and adventure in a local sense. Friday we celebrated Aly's birthday at a gorgeous French restaurant... that served Italian food for some reason. But no complaints, it was delicious nonetheless and the company was fabulous of course! Saturday was a trip out to this tiny little club where a couple of friends were having their first live gig. Good music, good fun had by all!



Oboke River

Me and some interesting rock formation


Gals on a boat cruise :-)


Our first view of the winding river... don't ya just love my minnie mouse bag?



Train through the mountain valley (Awa-Ikeda to Oboke)



I broke the 'don't look down' rule! It's much higher up than it looks in the picture!






Made it to Ikumi... and smiled through the rain showers!


Happy Birthday Aly G!!!!! xoxo




One for the boys! Addaz, Elliot, Aly, Dustin and Ned.


Aren't we just a bunch of colourful gorgeous girls! My neighbour Steph, Sweet Caroline, yours truly and Suzi Muzi