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
