Amanda Lilyan

I Have Emerged From Underground

2007-11-13T14:33:00.000+09:00

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!

2007-08-05T23:13:00.000+09:00

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....

2007-07-21T14:34:00.000+09:00

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....

2007-06-11T06:59:00.000+09:00

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.

2007-05-16T10:59:00.000+09:00

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!

2007-05-14T19:31:00.000+09:00

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!

2007-05-13T17:51:00.000+09:00

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

My Month in a Nutshell.

2007-04-22T18:12:00.000+09:00

Wow, it has been exactly a month since I last posted an entry here. Things have been happening! I have started working at my new school - Momoyamadai JHS - yes it's a mouthful, but everyone there is just LOVELY. In fact, I am distinctly under the impression that this is the best school I will be working at. Not that there was much wrong with the last two schools, but it just seems like the teachers here as a general group are a lot more outspoken and friendly. It's a much smaller school too... only 400 students compared to the 1000 at Ibukidai. I think that makes for a much less stressful environment. I am still busy. I will teach every class once a week, plus the special elective class for the 9th and 10th graders. Yay!

Ok, enough about my new school. The other major thing this month was my Mum's visit to Japan to see me and the CHERRY BLOSSOMS!!!!!!!!!!! She spent about 2 weeks, and we visited many of the good spots - Osaka,Himeji, Kyoto, Koya-san, and of course, right here in good ol' Kobe. We also spent her last weekend in Nagoya, visiting the Kumagai's, friends my family made during their visit to Fiji last January. So all in all, a really excellent time. I am having withdrawals having to go back to daily life, and being all alone in my gorgeous little apartment, which I realised at last is very very me, and very cute. I am going to miss it so much when I am finished here!

So... time to put in pictures from the "Andy and Mandy show - on the road"...

Mum and me... our feet on the mossy ground of Koya-san.

The main entrance of the temple we stayed at in Koya-san... so tranquil!

Our friends the Kumagai's in Nagoya. We spent our last weekend with them and had a wonderful time. Wine and sukiyaki ahoy.... this pic is to make my Dad jealous... as if he needed another reason to wish he was there!

Mr. Kumagai is taken with his new Aussie apron and orange Indigenous art plate...lurvely!

Mum making me pose artistically in Kyoto... awww.

Mum took this photo at the local park in Gakuentoshi... pretty!

Suzi, Mum, me and Emz enjoy a night of ikebana. Mum has quite a talent... hers is on the left nearest Suzi...

The cutest little girls riding their bikes in the local park... they kept insisting they didn't want their photograph taken yet couldn't help posing for the camera!!

Mum surrounded by beautiful Sakura.

The first picture I took of Mum under the cherry blossoms in Himeji.

Hitomi took us out for dinner in Osaka... our first big outing!

Me and my ma living it up in Japan... good times had by all!

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

2007-03-22T18:25:00.000+09:00

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?

2007-03-15T09:04:00.000+09:00

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...

2007-03-12T11:58:00.000+09:00

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...

2007-03-04T19:14:00.000+09:00

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!

I don't like grading papers

2007-02-20T13:19:00.000+09:00

I am so sick of sitting here correcting and marking papers for my san-nensei (10th graders). Talk about driving me nuts. No matter how many I seem to mark, there are always more, more, more. I am meant to have these ready before they graduate... at first I laughed at the idea, as if I wouldn't... but now, I am really beginning to worry.
I can barely mark 5 in a row without getting sleepy.
BAH!!!!

Hokkaido - a few candid snaps.

2007-02-19T15:21:00.000+09:00

Finally! Some photo's from my adventures in snowy Hokkaido, early February. Thanks to my friends who actually take good pictures, I have some nice ones to show here...

First - what it means to be drafted into the Sapporo military... snow sculpting! Of course, that's exactly what comes to mind when I think of the army... grand artistic endeavours! I wonder if they make some huge stencil for chiselling out this baby? I doubt art classes are a part of military training... though in Japan, you never know!

Us crazy kids who went skiing/snowboarding... that's the before shot, and there's a reason there isn't an after shot. Let's just say I was in no condition to be photographed. I could tell from the looks I was getting as I walked back into the building after I got down the slope... icicles coming off your hair is not a good look!

On our last day, I took the opportunity to do a bit of spontaneous dancing in the snow. It was unusual, and unbeknownst to me, caught on camera... A snowy evening in Sapporo.. preeetty!!!!

Aaaw. Me and Miffy - childhood friends reunited.

Our first night. Priority: finding a nice izakaya where we can stuff ourselves stupid... and drink some really delicious cocktail conconctions (and beer for the non-adventurous lads.. yes Rogi that's you, haha!).

Yay! Tourists!!!!!

Before I get distracted again...

2007-02-08T11:52:00.000+09:00

I will be putting up some pictures and commentary of my recent Hokkaido vacation, but first I want to bring your attention to a very very important website... well actually it's a blog of a couple of awesome people, Steve and Sandy. I met them on my volunteer trip in Thailand where Sandy was teaching English at the local school, and Steve was managing the Baan Unrak home for orphaned kids... their blog is amazing, giving insights into the daily life and also the projects that Steve is always getting off the ground to improve the way of live for many people in the area. Please check it out. For your reference here, it is http://www.steveandsandy.blogspot.com/ but I have also put it into my links.. please check it out, it'll blow your mind.

By the way I had an absolutely fabulous holiday in Hokkaido - with 7 other Kobe JETs - Farah, Caroline, Steph, Adrian, Dustin, Leigh and Rogi... we named ourselves the infamous Gak 8 (after our place of residence, Gakuentoshi...). We managed not to get arrested, which is always nice, and we enjoyed some beautiful snow... and thanks to Leigh and his super cautious driving, we survived on the roads.

I tried really hard to pick up a Scottish accent (under the tutelage of Glaswegian Rogi, who had me and Farah repeating some typical Scottish conversations.. how's it going? Not bad.. fancy a pint? Alright...) possibly failed miserably, but had lots of fun in the process. Also tried snowboarding and fell over so many times I cried like a baby with frustration. Dustin, my mountain angel on skis, stayed by my side through the worst of it, until Rogi and Leigh found me and finally taught me how to actually steer the frickin' thing (didn't stop me falling over, but helped me avoid the trees and dangerous precipices). It was an experience, I am glad it's over, and strangely enough, really want to give it another go! Must be a sucker for torture.

We had all you can eat lamb at the Genghis Khan restaurant at the Sapporo Beer Museum... that was an interesting eating experience... we set up 4 against four.. Me, Rogi, Leigh and Caroline against Farah, Dustin, Steph and Adrian. I think that eat-off was rigged from the start. We lost by a plate, but did well considering the odds weren't in our favour - no one can out eat Farah... not even Adrian... so what chance did we have? He he, I love you guys!

I had a bad cold on the last day, and my camera died, so I don't have great photo's of the last day with all the snow sculptures etc, but will be rading my friends SD-cards for theirs. So stay tuned!

Had a noice weekend ... well Friday night...

2007-01-30T14:41:00.000+09:00

Hello everyone of yous.
I thought I should put up a few photo's from Australia Day celebrations in Kobe, Japan. Despite the fact we had all had a very busy day, visiting schools and watching classes and then another trip to the Board of Education to update a compilation of teaching resources, we managed to party into the wee hours of the morning. Yay for us.

The rest of my weekend was very very boring with only an occasional trip from my apartment to go tutoring and grocery shopping, on Saturday and Sunday respectively. Anyway, back to the cool bit, which was the Australia Day party... we had some awesome food as you will see... and lots of non-Australian friends emblazoned with the Aussie flag tattoo on our behalf.. very kind I have to say.

Oh and a special thanks to this lovely lady Basabdatta for quickly whipping up some awesome chicken which added a multicultural flare (and supposedly that's what us Aussie's are all about right?). For those of you who don't know already, Basabdatta (nicknamed Moon for the pronunciation impaired) is my across-the-way neighbour, a delightful woman from India, whose ability to cook food that tastes like heaven-on-a-plate never ceases to impress me!
OK.. now for more photos!

Mandy, Emz and Reegs... 3 fabulous Aussies, if I do say so myself!

Leigh, our South Australian, brought a nice spot of Andrew Garrett sparkling red.. classy, unewesual...

as you can see, we like to label our guests with a stamp on the forehead...

we even made Leigh put one on... but, as Pauline Hanson would say, he 'didn't like it'.

Reegs made some delicious pies.. and even decorated one with a pastry gumnut leaf.. .which attracted the attention of this little fella!

And as if that weren't enough.. after the pies came dessert - bread and butter pudding courtesy of Leigh, and pavlova.. another amazing product from Reegan the wonder Aussie!

You're teeeerrible Dustin... no prizes for guessing what this San Fransicans fave Aussie movie is!

Ugh. I was gonna add in more pics, but I am tired now... I will put up a whole album on my msn.live.spaces website if you wanna take a look.

Slow on the Uptake...and a few other things.

2007-01-24T13:53:00.000+09:00

Hello.
I have only just realised that the link to my MySpace website had a tiny yet critical error. Now the link should work. I am very slow, I have to say. My dad had already told me he couldn't get onto it, but I just thought.. well, I think I didn't think. Honestly, who reads my blog drivel anyway?

Anyway, it works now and I will hopefully be updating it sometime soon.

Oh, and good news - my Mum is coming to visit in Spring - yay!!! I am already brainstorming the cool things us girls are gonna get up to.

I have heard it's hot in Australia right now - about bloody time! It's cold here today, as usual. The sun is shining, the air is freezing my nose as I walk down the street. Typical day, noice.

This Friday is Australia day. Us expats will be gathering people in my abode, watching the mockumentary 'Kenny' on DVD, eating pies and tim-tams, drinking duty-free Aussie wine, and then going out on the town covered in fake tattoos of the Australian flag. Should be greache.
I will hopefully remember to take some pictures.

That's all for now! Boiye!

My Weekend

2007-01-22T13:45:00.000+09:00

Yes, yes... it's all very boring, but it must have been quite a weekend, because today I am tired and yeah, well, a little grumpy. That is probably more to do with the fact it's Monday and two of my three classes that I taught this morning were frankly quite badly behaved and I just wanted to throw things at them.
Anyway, I am going to recount the most pleasant aspects of my weekend, to give me a little cheer...

On Saturday, Alison and I went to the Suntory Museum and saw the Pompeii exhibit which was just really cool and reminded me why I had so badly wanted to study Ancient History when I first went to University. I have decided that at the very least, I am going to brush up on the Greek/Roman mythology and try to remember which God did what exactly.... So that was Saturday's highlight.
Sunday's highlight was going to visit my dear friend Suzi and going for a walk (and bit of a disco dance) in the foresty mountain known as Hanayama. It was nice, though we only walked for about an hour cos it was getting dark. We decided next time we are going to get started earlier and go further... and possibly do more dancing amongst the trees... the sight of the two of us dancing to imaginary techno music was possibly a sight to behold, though I can say with 99% certainty, it was only beheld by us... that is probably a good thing. Anyway, we had fun, and that's what matters. Then Suzi cooked me delicious pasta and put on the 'Inside Man' DVD for me to watch. Clive Owen certainly is a man of talent.. aaaahhhh.
Caught up with my NZ pal Nikki-noo which was lovely too.
As for today.. well, I am hungry and about to go buy some lunch... as for tonight - I am making brownies in the rice-cooker.
Wish me luck!

Some Very Sad News

2007-01-15T11:48:00.000+09:00

Recently, someone very dear to me passed away. John Price was a kind man, who always had a smile to offer. He knew how to laugh and to enjoy the company of others. I will miss him dearly, and I know his family are devastated to lose him.
I send all my love to his mother, wife and sons. My thoughts are with you. I don't know what else I can say. The only thing that comes to mind is what my parents said to me last night when I called home to tell them the very sad news - it's just not fair.

Take a closer look...

2007-01-10T10:44:00.000+09:00

An oddity that I walk past every day several times whenever I enter or exit my school. An interesting pair of statues... very artistic... and perhaps they warrrant a raised eyebrow. It certainly is the strangest thing I have seen outside a Junior High School. I got so used to walking past it everyday, to the point where I had forgotton how unusual I had thought it to be when I first came here. But when Dustin came by to do his Santa gig in December, he was practically stopped in his tracks by the oddity of it, and I was forced to take another look. Since then, I have to supress a giggle every day. Maybe I am just childish!

Ok, to clarify, the statue on the left has a nice maple-looking leaf and the statue on the right is holding her hands up in front of her... apparently...
And no, I have no idea what they are looking at... or why their other (and obviously less significant) appendages seem to be absorbed by the very stylistic oblong design. I would ask my teachers, but I wager they would not have a clue what I was talking about, after all, it's very nice... yep...noice, un-ewes-ual, diff'rent.

Tuesday, Tuesday

2007-01-09T16:07:00.000+09:00

This has to be the messiest looking post I have ever done! My feet have been slowly turning to icicles as the day has worn on at school. I have written letters and emails, pretended to prepare lessons for my private students and elementary kids (in absence of any work to do for my actual school). But sadly none of this changes the state of the weather!
I am going to the gym when I get home in an attempt to jump start my circulation. In the meantime it's the memories of my reunion with family and friends in sunny Queensland that is getting me through the day.... good times!

So here are a few photo's from my happy vacation at home. I miss everyone already... although to be honest I would have to say I miss the summer more at this particular moment... ok, that's a lie - it's a fifty-fifty split!

Say No to New Years Resolutions!!!

2007-01-04T10:29:00.000+09:00

Ahh- happy memories of sun and surf...

I am back from Australia - WAAAHHH! Right, now I've got that out of my system it's time to focus on the bright side of being back in Japan ...which would be primarily earning money rather than spending it (just about died when I looked up my bank balance.. how much can one girl spend in 2 weeks??). Also, it was lovely to get back to my cute little apartment which was clean and tidy just as I had left it (I know my parents still don't believe that - will I ever live my dishevelled childhood down?) and I will soon be posting the pics to prove that my apartment is clean and Mandyfied

Strangely, what did stand out to me when I returned was how low the ceilings were... I mean they aren't really that low, just compared to Mum and Dad's place they are. But it definitely felt more like a little box... still, that's a good thing when it comes to trying to heat the place or it would never get warm.

Dang, 48 hours ago I was on the beach! I had better not torture myself with these thoughts.

Had a beautiful Chrissie and New Years - I made absolutely no formal resolutions... other than to do what I want to do, soon as I figure out what that is exactly! I mean - who keeps their New Years Resolutions anyway? I think people honestly make them to break them, or perhaps it's just that everyone I happen to know can't keep theirs...

Happy New Year to all my nearest and dearest... and to the ones who aren't so nearby!

Merry Christmas l'il chillun!!!

2006-12-12T10:58:00.000+09:00

It's a very stressful couple of days leading up to going home... but it has its rewards. Yesterday my dear friend Dustin dressed up as Santa Claus at my request and came to visit my Nishi Elementary school English Club. The kids sang and danced (choreography courtesy of moi) to Jingle Bells, shook hands with Santa, wrote a letter to Santa with pictures they drew of what they want for Christmas. And at the end, we handed out little koala toys to the kids as a reward for reading their letter to Santa. Afterwards, we did Jingle Bells one more time... watching the kids enthusiastically dance to the lame moves I made up was really cool and kind of embarrassing too - I mean they made it look much better than I ever thought it could be, but I was still thinking "If only they knew.....".

Oh and and aside... special ode to Dustin really, cos he did this for me after sleeping one hour the night before, and then had to contend with one particular crazy little kid who kept looking up his shirt and pants, and then latched on to his trouser cuff and it took a whole 5 minutes to unlatch this kid, even with the help of Mr. Hagiwara, the very calm and cool English teacher. And this was all before English club even started! He was occassionally accosted by some kids wanting to look under his beard and up his shirt, or poke his cushion stomach. On the whole though, these kids were much better behaved than any kids back home... on boy even ran a short cut after we left to see us again as we were riding our bikes back to the Junior High school.. he popped up twice to breathelessy wheeze 'hello' as we rode past. Funny!

Thanks Dustin, you are my hero xoxo and you are these kids' hero too! Look carefully at the tiny little girl in front of Santa, holding up a tiny koala toy in her hand. She was so overjoyed at this little gift, that she actually cried, and then named it 'Momo' after her little sister... cuuuute. Her name is Yui and she has become my favourite. She reminds me of me at primary school - mainly because she tries hard at the games but rarely wins... however, when she does do well at something she is always so happy! She really struggled with English in the beginning but yesterday she asked Santa for a "Remote controlled car" in perfect English - you rock Yui!

Ode to Old Friends

2006-12-06T15:55:00.000+09:00

Last night I hightailed it to Osaka with a few select friends to see this girl. Her name is Amy Walters and we were best friends in Primary School, a bazillion years ago (Okay more like 13 years ago but who's counting??). She came to Japan on tour with The Wellingtons - an awesome power pop band from Melbourne, playing keyboards. But that is just her current disguise. She is actually a very talented photographer.
So me and my JET pals went and rocked out at the show and hung out talking to Amy and her awesome friends afterwards. It was great to meet such cool people, dance like crazy to good music and lose my hearing for a full 24 hours afterwards. It was great to talk to my best buddy from long ago once again, and though the time was short, I felt she is a really cool chick, just as she was back in the day when we were kids!
So, please check out her website http://www.amywalters.com and look at her coooool photos.

Oh and this is the poster for The Wellingtons Japanese tour - Amy is (the replacement for) the Japanese guy in the stripy shirt - or at least that's what she told me!

Lollipop!

2006-12-01T11:06:00.000+09:00

Some very special girls.. (from Back, l-r) Yuuki, Kayo, Chiro, Mai, Megu, Yuuka and Nozomi.

Just wanted to put a post up about Wednesday. Wednesday was the Kobe Walk Tour for Suzi's highschool kids. A bunch of us ALTs joined in and each joined a small group of students for a walk around Kobe, getting to know a little history about the place, but mainly just enjoying the day and the company of these gorgeous kids. 3 of my groups members I had met before at Suzi's International Day at the school.

It was great to see these girls again, and get to know a few others! Stephanie and I joined forces for the day, and so got to know each other's group of girls as well. It was an awesome day. We hung around at the harbour, went to Chinatown and stuffed our faces with food, and then to Mosaic back at the harbour, where we went crazy at the sweet shop, and bought our girls a huge lollipop each! We also taught them the sing 'lollipop lollipop, oh la-la-lollipop' - it was crazy and fun! This ultra cute picture is known as "purikura" a fabulous craze where for about $5 bucks you get all these pics taken, you can decorate them however you want, and then print them out as little stickers that you can put all over your stuff... awesome!

I am now exchanging text messages with these girls, so I hope to stay in touch with them in the future....

Okay random, one of the Science teachers, Ms. Tateiri, just gave me a bottle of Belgian Cherry beer. At one of the enkais (teachers parties) we had been discussing International beer, and I mentioned my favourite was this Belgian berry flavoured beer. And so she went and bought me some! Wow. She already gave me mandarins and other stuff a couple of weeks ago after I had been away sick. What a sweet lady.. I am bringing her a really cool present back from Australia.

Time to do some serious work. Fun and games don't just organise themselves apparently.

2006-11-28T11:26:00.000+09:00

It's been a weekend of eating, drinking and most importantly, being in the company of great friends. And I have the pictures to prove it! Above are pics of the Saturday night do at my place, which was instigated and organised in the main by the lovely Leina (the cutey in the green t-shirt). Below are pics of me with Suzi and Elliot, who had an intimate little dinner the night before at Suzi's gorgeous apartment. Fun times!

I had such a great weekend, and believe it or not, my apartment is practically sqeaky clean thanks to the assitance of Brianne and Reegan in the final panicky minutes before everyone arrived on Saturday night. And then all the awesome people who stayed on to do dishes and clean up after! What awesome peoples you all are!

Now of course I have to try and keep it neat til I leave for Australia. Only 2 weeks, so I should be able to manage that (curb your cynicism folks!).

Now it's time to turn my mind to very serious and important issues, such as Christmas shopping and trying to book up my time in Australia. So much to organise: meeting friends, going hiking, picnics, eating Aussie food, going to the movies for cheap, buying new clothes and CDs and most importantly, braving the beach and risking future skin cancer by trying to tan. It's all very well to be all pasty and pale in Japan, but I say to heck with healthy and alabaster, I want to be bronzed... at least a little healthy glow would be nice. I will endeavour not to get burned, because that would just be embarrassing...

At the moment I am reading a book called "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's interesting... I am nearly halfway through so will reserve my judgement until the end, but I have been reading quite a few books by award-winning authors I haven't read before and getting hooked on the stories.

Well, better get back to doing nothing much at work... maybe I will look up some cute pictures to design Christmas cards for my 8th graders to colour in. Yes, that's it.. .as soon as I finish the next chapter of the book!

Another week already?

2006-11-24T15:26:00.000+09:00

Wow, this week has flown by... I think it's all these public holidays... well, one at least. Yesterday was "Labour Thanksgiving Day" in Japan which incidentally fell on the same day as Thanksgiving in America... apparently. Of course being from Australia, where we don't even acknowledge Aboriginal people as the original inhabitants of the continent, I am a Thanksgiving novice and not entirely sure about these things. So, apart from a myriad of thanksgiving gatherings occuring this week, it was also my fellow home-townie and expat Emz's birthday (photo- me and Emz at Kobe Winery wearing Yukata!)... and we had an awesome dinner party at the Sky Buffet in town - all you can eat and drink in 1.5hrs for $30. Not bad... we all went crazy as large groups of foreigners in Japan are wont to do. And we ended the dinner with a raucous (and yet surprisingly melodic) rendition of "Happy Birthday" for the birthday girl. It got the attention of other patrons, some of whom even clapped and came to say Happy Birthday to Emz afterwards. It was really noice actually!

After that there was some bar hopping with general hilarity involved.

I have postponed my tutoring gig until Sunday afternoon this week in order to attend a nice little dinner party tonight being thrown by two lovely people - Suzi and Elliot. Then tomorrow is the BIG one at my place... at least 25 people in my smallish apartment... going to have to put up a notice for the neighbours and promise to turn the noise down at about 11.30pm.

Before I get to carried away typing all this stuff - to recap, Happy Birthday Emz! And Happy Thanksgiving - there's so much to be thankful for!

Just like any other Friday...

2006-11-17T09:32:00.000+09:00

Good morning.
It's Friday. Friday is, by and large, a day for rejoicing. For me, Friday is a very very long day. To my young and carefree mind, Friday should be a day where you look forward to a night of going out for a few drinks and debriefing with friends (and boy do us gaijin- foreigners- need it in Japan!). However, usually I have to postpone this much needed therapy until sometime around 10pm on a Friday night because I spend these precious nights tutoring English to a couple of really sweet girls from a really sweet family.
But, hey, it's still a Friday which prevents me from appreciating this gig as much as I should. And you know what makes me an even more ungrateful woman? Well, not only do they pay me well, they feed me a well balanced meal for dinner afterwards.

The family I am talking about it the Yoshimuras. Mr. Yoshimura was my Japanese Teacher of English at the first school I worked at last year. He asked me to tutor his now 11 year old daughter, Sae. I have since started tutoring his 18 year old niece, Ayana, as well. We always have fun, and both Mr. and Mrs. have a good sense of humour and we manage to laugh and joke around despite the language barrier.

Two hours of tutoring and a meal later, my Friday night is almost over... and yet I still have that need to break out from the week and mingle with my friends.
So usually I drag myself out to town and spend the 1 1/2 remaining hours before the last train locating friends to share a drink with. Then we come home around midnight and I fall into bed.... though I have been known on occasion to insist on having an impromptu house party and have people over til about 3am. Last time I did that I felt rotten for the whole weekend, so I think I will try and avoid doing that again for a little while, although...
Well, play time is over and it's back to work... gotta find a lesson to teach little Sae.
xo

PS Above is a photo of Sae (pigtails in pink and white shirt) and her friend Ayako. Also Mr and Mrs. Yoshimura messing about, we were all taking silly pics of each other with our mobile phones!

2006-11-15T10:06:00.000+09:00

Hi folks.
Every so often I get a new lease on life. This is one of those times. To celebrate, I am starting a new blog that will hopefully not be as messy as the last one! A clean slate is a good thing I feel...
I will endeavour to keep my posts more frequent, and perhaps shorter, though maybe you are already chortling at that because you know my fondness for writing a lot. I will do my best to keep it entertaining... failing that, at least mildly interesting.