Just another day at work.

Since there are no students at school it seems I'm not the only one with time on my hands. As I sat at my desk today, one of my team teachers crouched down beside me at my desk and whispered "do you have shoes for the gym?" I said no, but she proceeded to tell me about the "young teachers' secret plan to play badminton. Well the secret soon turned out to be general knowledge as myself and 7 other teachers younge and old broke out the badminton nets after playing without them for 10 minutes. Here I am at my desk about two hours later, back drenched with sweat and eyes wanting to close, but yet I feel energized and excited. That was so much fun! It is a must to socialize with your teachers outside of the school/classroom setting because you see a TOTALLY different side to their personalities.



The plan for tomorrow is to play basketball or volleyball in the afternoon...that's after I cook some curry chicken in the homemaking room for lunch! Just another day at the office lol!



PICTURES COMING SOON!

"Killing The Game"

My poor blog has been in the back of my mind for sometime due to lack of motivation, but I think I'm back. I'm coming down to my last days in Japan and I've been keeping very busy.

At the end of March my good friend Ian came to visit me for 8 days of what he called "killing the game". Killing the game was his reference to the way Japanese people, especially women carry themselves with style and poise whether it be to go to the grocery store or on a night out. It's true these women have style and after living here for this long I can say that nowhere else in the world (except maybe Paris?) can rival the complete style in Japan.

The first day of Ian's visit was pretty low key. After meeting him at the airport, I handed him my camera and from that moment until his last day here, he went off! The man took pictures of everything! I loved every minute of it and hope it is, as he says, the start of a new hobby. We took the Narita express and he wasted no time pushing his earphones in my head to listen to Drake. If I didn't know he was going to make sure I did!

The next few days saw us in Himeji, Kobe and Osaka. We had a few false starts waking up early, some of which are admittedly my fault, but we made the best out of each day and caught jokes along the way.

Half way through his trip we visited Kyoto's Kinkaku-ji(Golden Temple), Gion & Pontocho(geisha district), Kyoto Tower, Fushimi Inari(shinto shrine), Shosei-en garden as well as Nara's Todai-ji to see Daibatsu(big Buddha) and Nara koen(deer park). I think this part of the trip was when I got the most amount of laughs. We were both lacking proper sleep and Ian was on a roll with the foolish jokes and randomness. Some of the things that came out of his mouth just made me laugh until I cried because they came out of nowhere and made no kinda sense!

I had never visited Nara prior to this so I was really excited, and rightly so. I got to feed the deer! I was nervous at first and told Ian not to be surprised if I got scared, but the deer were so tame!!!! I loved every minute of it(the pictures will prove it), except for when the greedy deer went in my jacket pocket looking for more cookies and left the inside all wet and soggy! Ian almost got robbed and called the deer "the pickpockets of Asia" lol! Thus far, Nara is one of my favourite places in Japan.

To end off the visit we took the Nozomi shinkansen (bullet train) and spent the last 3 nights in the capital city, Tokyo. We met up with Ian's friend of a friend Damien who added to the abundance of jokes. We walked from Shibuya on a nighttime tour of Harajuku and Omote-Sando Hills (think Yorkville in Tdot or Park Ave. in NYC) courtesy of Damien ending off the first night with an AMAZING Thai dinner.
sidebar: If you're ever in Tokyo and you have a thing for Thai food like I do, look up the restaurant Kaffir Lime.

Although we were dressed and ready to go out it didn't happen. For me the laughs and good company was great and truth be told, we probably had more fun walking and talking than we would have going out. Day 2 in Tokyo met us in Akihabara, Tokyo's electric city early in the day after which we hopped on the train a few stops over and met Damien at Shinjuku station. The great thing about meeting up with people is the discovery of new places. We went to a hamburger joint called JS Burger. Now I am no burger girl per se, but the ones at this place were supercalafragalisticexpialadociously delicious! I had a burger with avocado AND PINEAPPLE! I won't even try to describe it because I won't do it justice.

Later in the evening we headed to Roppongi Hills (I'm starting to think any place with Hills after it is posh lol) where we window shopped and had Chinese for dinner. The chef nearly burned the restaurant down and we were surrounded by a cloud of smoke and the staff opening all the windows! It was a hilarious sight watching some of the people just get up and walk out without thinking twice, while us losers just sat there and laughed lol! The night was capped off with some coffee/hot chocolate and some SERIOUSLY GOOD conversation. Great convos are few and far between in this foreign land where the majority of people don't speak and understand all the nuances of the English language. All in all a GREAT day.

On day 3 in the city, we shopped a little bit and met up with tour guide extraordinaire Damien at night to try different kinds of yakitori and later on ramen. I was a bit scared of the yakitori that I tried as the meat was half cooked, but it didn't kill me so I'll count it as another notch on my belt of new things.

On the last day Ian and I ran over to Akihabara again to grab a few things, meandered our way through the side streets of Omote Sando area to find Kaffir Lime again and had lunch before we were on our way to the airport. I was feeling sad the night before, but I think I did a good job of hiding it (E how did I do?). We made it to Narita in good time and before I knew it the amazing visit had come to an end and Ian was walking through the security check.

I honestly do have the greatest friends, I'm thankful for them every single day. E thank you so much for coming to visit, I know you could have gone somewhere else for much cheaper but you came here. Love you liked Mommy's breakfast on a Christmas morning:)!

PICTURES COMING SOON!

I'm lacking blog motivation

On a real note, I lost all motivation to keep my blog updated. The main reason being, I feel like no one is reading. I know some of you read because I can see the counter numbers increasing, but please leave a comment or something. That is what motivates me. Yes I will have this blog to look back on when this experience is over, but what keeps me wanting to write is knowing that you are reading so please leave a comment. Hopefully I'll be motivated once again.

Things are well and I've been keeping myself nice and busy for the past couple of months. For the holidays I went to Beijing, China for Christmas and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for New Years'. I'll be back with more.

Lata

Happy New Year from Good ole Nippon

Thank you to all of you who have been there and supported me through this experience abroad, especially my folks. I love you like Caribbean breakfast on Christmas morning!

Thank you for keeping in touch and dispelling my fear of being out of sight out of mind.

I really can't believe that 2009 is here already and that I've lived in Japan for 18 months! Before I know it July will be here and I'll be packing up to go home! As much as I LOVE it out here, there is truly no place like home. Home where you are surrounded by friends and family who love you for you, can relate to you and can communicate with ease and understanding. I really have learned to appreciate even more of the little things while being here.

For me 2009 will continue in the same fashion as last year...harnessing positive energy and striving toward forward movement. I will try to be the best person that I can be and reach for the stars.

I hope this year brings all of you nothing but positivity, health and many blessings. Love you much!

Amanda