Happy (slightly overdue) birthday Suzi!!!!!!

Last Saturday marked a milestone in a wonderful lady's life - Suzi had a important birthday. As she would say 'Oh my f***, I'm 30"... not that she is precious about it by any means. The truth is this woman is wise beyond her years, but has a love of life and is zany and crazy and funny and gorgeous, and sincerely young at heart - in all the good ways! In fact, she makes 30 darn attractive and not at all scary.
Me and Elliot sang a few songs at her birthday dinner and although I made a lot of mistakes in my piano playing, Suzi still cheered (thanks!). Here's to you Suzi - you are the sister of my heart.. Happy Birthday you faaaabulous lady!

Ikebana anyone?

This was my first ever attempt at Ikebana. It took me about 1.5 hours to do... no kidding. It may look simple, but actually it's rather mathematical, and the aesthetical approach is very different to that of western flower arrangement.

We were introduced to a style of ikebana called "The Rising Form". This means that there is a tall straight 'subject' (in my case in the form of Osmunda Japonica, the very strange curling plant, with the flat round bit up top) in the centre, and then the 'object', 1/3 the height coming out in front at a 45 degree angle (seen here in the form of anthurium). Then you put in other bits at various angles (another anthurium, some more japonica and those frondy things which are called Asparagus eochinchinensis), which was the bit that caused me the most stress cos I really had no idea what kind of form it should take. However, after a few very helpful hints from our lovely teacher, who speaks English so poetically, I managed to arrange this little thing.

At the end of the lesson we take pictures of our little creation, and take a look at everyone elses and make little comments, and then we have to take it all apart - but we get to take our flowers and rearrange them again once we get home... Of course I don't have the ikebana making stuff, so mine is looking very un-Japanese arranged in an oversized mug on my bookshelf! But it's a nice reminder of the fun I had at the very least.

The photo sadly does not do it much justice, cos you can't see the depth or textures really - and these kinds of things are very important in Ikebana! Well, despite being confused and generally having no idea what I was doing, I had a very relaxing evening and spent time with some really great women - Japanese and foreign alike. I will be returning again in 2 weeks time to have another go with another set of interesting flowers and greenery.

Don't you hate it when...

You get dressed up to the nines with your friends, go out and have an awesome time, bring your camera, and NOT TAKE A SINGLE PICTURE. Oh how lazy I am and I really regret it this time! On Saturday night, a couple of friends had a combined birthday outing, and those attending were requested to outfit in red and black. People really wore some cute stuff and we stayed out til the wee hours dancing and drinking and just generally enjoying the fact that so many of us were all together in one place.. which happens rarely because we are such a big group (When I say 'we', I mean the 60 odd Kobe JETs and some other friendly Hyogo JETs we also see about on occasion). It was good, and the hangover not so bad, thanks to midday pancakes and KFC in the late afternoon on Sunday - and a bit of Austin Powers in the evening.
It's been a bit of a Mike Myers week for us Aussie chicks in Scholars House. Starting last week, we managed to watch Waynes World 1 and 2. And yesterday we even followed Goldmember with So I Married and Axe Murderer. And the laughs keep rolling....

And laughs is what I need cos today I had my last class with my elementary school kids. I managed to royally mess up one of the games, the embarrassment of which helped me not to cry when they passed me a little posy of flowers and their goodbye letters. Waaah! Gorgeous little Yui didn't win a single prize throughout the games, but she carried my things to my bike for me, and so I gave her the last prize pencil (with cute little kangaroos on it) as a thankyou. I'm tearing up thinking about it.. what a softie I am!

On a brighter note, this Friday marks a mere 2 weeks until my mother arrives in Kobe - so excited! I hope the weather will be more consistently warm by then. Spring is being a little shy at the moment.

From Nagano to Yokohama to my bed...

It seems I have made myself rather susceptible to catching colds, flu and the like of late. The latest, which I fondly refer to as the dreaded lurgy, kept me in bed for the last two days and before that, barely able to function on the last day of the conference in Yokohama and at school on the days following it. Ugh. Finally I am on the mend, but I tell ya what, certainly getting sick of bein' sick!
Time to throw in my pictures from my time away in Yokohama, and in Nagano before that. Snowboarding was fun... and Yokohama was an experience - the conference told me the value of networking and that working for an NPO basically means you will be poor.... booooh! Oh and Kelsey and Roman are the two awesomest friends a girl could have! It was so great to see them again.. and eat out with them, and drink with them, and karaoke with them, and take silly pics with them....and giggle like a maniac with them.... oh dear. I am getting nostalgic already and it's barely been a week!

The slopes at Tsugaike kogen. Do I look like a professional?... well, if you think so you didn't see me come off the chair lift like a right nong. I went sprawling and had to be hauled out of harms way by the attendant guy... hehe... how embarrassment!

The Nagano gang - Joss, Reegs, Shanman, Mandy (moi!), Emz, Dr. Dan.

The 3 snowboarding gals.... smiling through the pain and bruises, hehehe.


A reunion most awesome - Roman, me and Kels together again!

"Hee hee" , Big smiles, lotsa girly giggles, and of course Starbucks coffee!

This man's sense of style puts me to shame.. Roman you're so lurvely, take me shopping!!!

And another one for my scrapbook - aren't we just toooo cuuute?




At the Hard Rock Yokohama.... me way up the end, with kelsey and Roman... Kobe peeps on the left hand side! And two of Leigh's friends whose names I can't remember, but they seemed noice.

Aww.... three happy chappies!