Girls Night Out

Saturday night was a girls night out. Lauren, Tina and I headed to a local pub called Coast, near the Himeji Castle. Shogo, the DJ, was appearing for the final time and so it was a bit of a special occasion. The cover charge was ￥2000 (about $20) which included our first drink. The pub was packed and we soon discovered there were only 3 other foreigners in the place!

We had a great time meeting lots of 'interesting' people, many whom knew text book English. Many people kept saying "Can I help you?" to which we replied, "Yes, I'm looking for a sweater". They cracked up laughing at this because it was a section of the high school text book about shopping! We also had fun practising our Japanese.

Anyone would be forgiven for thinking it was a fancy dress event because some of the outfits worn by the Japanese locals were...umm...interesting.

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing...

Cherry Blossom Dude:








Cotton-Eyed Joe:










Mr Perm-o:

Lauren ordered some drinks, but didn't exactly get what she expected! Our new favourite beverage is Malibu and Coke (which is what she ordered). She came back with Maibu and milk! A bit odd, but she drank it all the same. Just as we were discussing as if anyone would normally drink this...a guy walked past with one! Here he is with Tina. We asked him to make a milk mostache!

We had a fun night.

Japanese Massage

I just experienced the magical craft of a Japanese masseuse. After positioning myself in a sitting/kneeling position on the unusual massage chair, the lady placed a cloth on my shoulders and started kneading away. She would push on each spot only 3 times before moving along to a new spot, this way it wasn't painful (unlike ones I've had in Oz). My shoulders, neck and back were massaged and like always, it was over all too quickly. Finally I lifted my face (crinkled by the paper towel) and floated out the shop door! The 20 minute experience cost me a little over $15 Aus.

Sports Day (Literally)

Today is Sports Day for the First graders. It is not a traditional Sports Day but a Ball Games Day. All of the kids changed into their Sports tracksuits and headed to the gymnasium; girls in cerise and boys in blue. They sat aligned in their rows during the Sports Day Opening Ceremony.

Next, they all spaced out in their lines and did a warm-up routine run by one of the students who stood on the stage. He shouted, "ich, nee, san shi," and the other students would chorus together, "go, rok, shich, hatch". It was amazing to see these 350 bodies swinging their arms and stretching all in unison. Once they had finished they all shuffled forwards to their original lines.

The boys headed outside to the track (a big patch of dirt, no asphalt or grass) and the girls stayed in the gym. Boys played basketball and soccer for the day and the girls played volleyball. So it was actually a "Sports Day"!

I stayed in the gym and watched the girls play (which I glad about as it was raining outside). The members of the volleyball club worked efficiently to set up the volleyball nets, pull across the huge mesh curtain to divide the gym into two courts and then they started to do warm up drills. There were 8 teams and only 4 played at one time, so many girls were sent upstairs to watch from the balcony.

There were some very interesting differences between playing Volleyball at Jr High in Japan and playing in Pt Augusta.

*They play 10 kids a side.
*They decide which team serves first by playing rock, paper, scissors.
*They have 4 hits to get the ball back over the net.
*The server has 2 shots at serving, like in tennis.
*The first team to score 25 points in the winner, regardless of the score of the other team.

The girls were very enthusiastic about playing and liked to high-5 each other after winning a point. There were some pretty talented kids playing and some pretty ordinary ones playing too, which made for interesting viewing. All-in-all it was a fun day. I'm looking forward to the conventional Sports Day that is held next semester.

Blossoms must mean it's nearly... Spring!

So, the weekend has come and almost gone... after the hyped up adrenaline of the volleyball yesterday, Sunday brought a more sedate stroll through the plum blossoms. After being picked up by 2 of our Japanese friends, we spent the morning wandering through the trees and practicing our Japanese, whilst we helped them practice their English. Through a muddle of our Japanese and their English we were able to practice some things we had learnt previously, plus some new things, plus some new English for them. What a busy morning. The plums blossoms were beautiful, and I can imagine that in a few weeks they will be amazing when they are fully in bloom. In the "Ayabeyama Bairin" (plum orchard), there are some 20,000 plum trees visible, plus from the top of the hill you can see out past the inland sea to islands such as Shikoku (on a clear day that is). With our entry fee to the orchard we also got a free, which we turned in for a can of plum juice... kind of like Grape juice but even sweeter! Very enjoyable!!

What The? February

Would it be easier to just have a sign saying "Free"?



















"One of these things is not like the others,


One of these things just doesn't belong.


Do you know which is not like the others,


Before I finish my song?"

C'mon you Reds

Well, my (Jono) biggest disappointment in Japan so far is that I won"t be able to see the Reds play in the GF tomorrow... whilst keeping up with the news, especially from the most reliable source of Adelaide Now (yeah right!), we can't watch it anywhere tomorrow... Not to worry, we"ll have to listen to Dom and Alby via life fm and it'll be just like we're there... The shirt is clean, the speakers are plugged in and the champagne ready... C'mon you Reds!

National League Volleyball

We braved the windy, wet weather to make our way to the Himeji Gymnasium where we watched some mind-blowing volleyball. The two teams in combat were the NEC Red Rockets and the Toyota Queens. Both sides had an international recruit, who stood out like a sore thumb!



The gymnasium was full of fans with their thunder sticks and the cheerleaders kept everyone enthusiastic. They were very cute in their uniforms and glittery pompoms, each teams' taking in turn to do a performance on court between sets. Their routines were quite reminiscent of the movie 'Bring it On', however these girls had a lot less attitude! They made 3 storey human pyramids and had girls flipping in the air. Quite entertaining. The songs favoured by the Toyota Queen cheerleaders at each winning point were "5, 6, 7, 8" by Steps and "Hey Mickey" in Japanese!



The game was won in straight sets by the Red Rockets ( we were their fans for the day) and after 2 hours of watching standing up at the back of the stands, we braved the wet and cold again and choofed home, this time scoring a bus right outside.

Miyajima: The Oyster Fest

Whilst Ceduna may lay claims to the real Oyster Fest, Miyajima can have the really big oyster fest! Thousands lined up for bbq oysters which were twice the size of anything we had ever seen before! They simply chucked them on the barbie, cut them open and sold them to anyone and everyone... The queues seemed to go forever... we thought, "these must be good", but after all that neither of us had any. More on food later...

Miyajima is a small island about an hour from the middle of Hiroshima. It involves a streetcar and then a 10 minute ferry from the mainland. As we took the ferry across, dark and gloomy skies formed a grey background, and one could have been forgiven for believing we were about to enter Jurassic Park. However this became less of a possibility as a large orange gate came into view and we quickly docked. We took maps and began our adventure, where the deer roam free and the monkeys ride bicycles.

First stop was a shrine. Don't get me wrong (jono), they are beautifully built buildings, with fantastic pannelling and structures. But to me, they all look very much the same, and as I have no interest in the religious side of it what so ever (not sure what it actually was), I quickly got over it!

We headed from there to a place for lunch... simple japanese food... no oysters for us though...

From there it was up the mountain,a 25 minute walk followed by two cable car rides... Once at the top there were monkeys running around everywhere, although the pink bums were a little bit of a turnoff... fantastic views over Hiroshima and the surrounding islands made it all worthwhile... I think if we were to go back we'd go much earlier so we could climb to the top of the mountain, we didn't actually get to the summit...

Back to food... The Hiroshima prefecture is known for 2 things... Seafood (oysters in particular) and okonomyaki. Not sure if we have previously mentioned it but its like pizza, but with a cabbage base, sort of like an omlette. It also has a special sauce... My theory on food is if you put 2 things together you like you will come out a winner. For example, peanut butter and lettuce is a fantastic, though unikely winner as a sandwhich. Broccoli covered in chocolate, in my opinion, has real potential in the marketplace if only cadbury would stop making furry friends... Therefore, the theory would be that Okonmyaki with Oysters would be magnificent... We didn't however try this for 2 reasons. 1: Jodi may be allergic to Oysters. 2. Jono ate a massive squid for morning tea and didn't feel like any more seafood (pictured, yes it's a squid on a stick!).... According to all others it was really good and the okonomyaki (we had a plain one) was deserving of its repuatation.

We headed back via the ferry and back to our Hiroshima hotel.

The day had been really busy and involved much walking, but for me the highlight came very early in the day. Some of you will know we have been taking Japanese classes and we are slowly picking things up. We had lost a member of our group who had gone to the toilet... feeling the urge to move on, I thought we would go and find this person who was in the toilet. Fortunately I learnt how to ask where the toilet was in Japanese last week. So I (jono) walked to the info booth and politely asked, "sumi-massen, tore wa doco des ka?" (excuse me, where are the toilets?). The lady smiled, laughed and pointed and said in broad English... "Oh the toilet... They are just over there..." Couldn't help but laugh... At least I know the Japanese lessons are working.

Hiroshima

For our second long weekend in Japan, the 8 Aussies decided to take a holiday to Hiroshima. We rode the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) from Himeji station to Hiroshima 294.6km away. We arrived in 1 hour and 7 minutes. Not bad hey. The interesting thing is that we didn't feel like we were travelling at 300km/h. The seats were quite spacious and we could stand our suitcase in front of our legs. This thing even had a drink and food cart come up the aisle, just like a plane! On arrival we headed for our hotel which involved catching a street car (tram). We left for a self-guided tour of the Atomic Bomb site.


Our first significant site was Sadako's Memorial, you may have read about her in the book "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes". There was a tall dome-like structure which had a statue of Sadako on the top holding a crane. Many cabinets surrounded the statue which were full of paper cranes made by many people across the world.






Next we came across the Peace Flame. This flame will continue to burn until the world is rid of nuclear weapons. (So does that mean it'll be burning for a long time yet?)

The A-Bomb Dome was a significant site, which I (Jodi) found quite eerie to look at. It is the only structure to have been preserved in its original state post A-Bomb. It serves as a constant reminder of that horrific day when an "American B29 Bomber dropped the atomic bomb on August 6th, 1945 at 8:15am". All of its vertical walls are still standing (now with a bit of support from scaffolding) and the skeleton of the dome roof remains.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum was interesting yet quite intense. It gave the history of Hiroshima 100 years prior to the bombing and 60 years on. Details via pictures, models, videos and audio were presented. There were gruesome pictures of survivors of the bomb and stories about children who, with burnt and bleeding bodies, made it home to their parents and died shortly after. There were many displays of items that survived the bomb including a lunch box with charcoaled food, bottles and bowls, clothes and even some one's fingernail and skin (eww). Whilst it was not an enjoyable experience it was one that we will never forget.

We also headed to Hiroshima castle, also known as Carp Castle. It's not in its original state, as obviously, it was flattened by a bomb. It was re-built shortly after and is now more of a museum about previous rulers and samurai warriors. There were some pretty impressive displays of armour, swords, clothing and footwear (even thongs!). The castle had 5 levels and you could climb all the way to the top and look out over Hiroshima city.




A short walk from the castle took us to Shukkeien garden, with many mini gardens and paths. It was a tranquil place right in the middle of the city. We could have stayed there, pulled out a good book and relaxed all day. There were ponds, bridges, a waterfall and an array of native plants, not to mention our first view of a plum blossom orchard beginning to bloom. It was simply stunning.

Jodi @ Elementary School

Every Thursday I go to one of two elementary schools, Joyo Elementary and Arakawa Elementary. It is this day of the week that I look forward to the most. Primary school in Australia is the equivalent to Elementary school. The kids are just so cute and friendly. I have an absolute ball with them.

As I walk in the school gates at 8am, the school yard is a hive of activity. There are kids riding unicycles, having brass band practise (this puts any Australian school band to shame), boys playing dodge ball and modified ball games, girls skipping and climbing like ants over the play equipment. They are all so happy and content. I find myself watching in amazement.

The first thing I taught in all classes was greetings. "Hello. My name is ~. Nice to meet you". I often start the lessons off by revising this greeting and I end up having the whole class line up to greet me and shake my hand. They LOVE shaking hands. I have also taught feelings and colours. We play lots of games like Bingo and fruit salad and sings lots of songs. We sing the 'Hello' song, 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes', 'Twinkle, Twinkle', 'Open, Shut Them' and 'If You're Happy and You Know it'. Their favourite song/dance is the Hokey Cokey (aka The Hokey Pokey!!).

Lunch is the most amazing part of the day. The kids get dressed up in little white coats, face masks and hats and toddle off down the corridor to the kitchen. Then they bring back big pots of food, fruit, soup, cartons of milk, trays, bowls and chopsticks to the classroom. Next they set it all up a production line and proceed to serve lunch to the other members of the class. The class then waits for everyone to be seated and ready. They say a chant and then dig in. The teacher gives the kids a chance to return some of the food if they have too much and then kids who want more can go and get more food. It is always an awesome feed. The pack-up is just as organised as the setting up. They all rinse their milk cartons and put their bowls, tray and chop sticks back in the right spot.

It All Began...

We haven"t had a chance to catch up with everyone (either by e-mail, postcard or phone), so we"ll try and backdate some of our dventures, starting at the start... We wrote a lot of this a long time ago, so we're just publishing it for you people... enjoy...

It all began...with a nasty wake-up call at 3:30am on the 2nd of January, 2007. We arrived at the airport at the recommended time of 5am and checked our baggage through to Osaka. While making our way through to the International departures terminal, who should be randomly selected to be tested for explosives??? The same girl who was selected for a bag search in Bali and a drugs test in Melbourne...Jodi. Before long we were saying goodbye to some teary mums and sisters and on our way to Melbourne. The trusty information given to us by the travel agent was wrong and we had to run to catch our International connected flight to Hong Kong. No worries!

It was much fancier than anything we had ever flown in before... with our own individual tv screens in the back of seats, 57 channels and nothing on (That one's for you dad(Philip)!), a pamper pack with rug, socks, face mask, toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as a lanyard (we still have everything!), not to mention unlimited scotch and wine (although none was consumed!).

8 and a half hours later, we touched down in Hong Kong. The highlight was definately the Chinese stamp in the passport. We resided in the Panda Hotel for the night but did not have much time to look around. Jono discovered that Heineken tastes the same in Adelaide as it did in Hong Kong. The four of us (Chris, Bill, Jono and I) found a restaurant with an illustrated menu for dinner and enjoyed our first meal in Asia. It was an early retirement that night.

We headed back to Hong Kong Airport early the next day and touched down in Osaka 4 hours later. We made our way through customs and became un-official aliens in Japan. Customs was no where near the hassle we were expecting, although the trusty travel information was again wrong. Our shuttle bus took over 2 hours to come. Eventually our bus took us to the Ramada where we stayed overnight before being taken to Himeji by Mr Iizuka. We were finally at our new home.

Traditional Tea Ceremony

On Saturday January 20th, we were invited to go to a Traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony. It was held at the Shirononishi Community Centre, not far from our residence. All of the ALTs and esteemed Japanese guests were there and buzzing with anticipation.


All of the foreign teachers (us) had to give a speech to the Japanese guests, many of which spoke no English. We tried our best to come up with something pretty much on the spot, and Cercey translated it into Japanese for us.



Next we were treated to a concert which included a Japanese singer singing Traditional Japanese songs accompanied by a pianist. Both performers were outstanding. The vocalist sang in a kind of opera style, and as with opera we didn't understand a word she sang! The pianist was very graceful in her playing style as her hands seemed to float gently across the keys and her arms softly lifted up and down placing her hands where they needed to be. We were taught a song with a very catchy tune (so catchy that if someone starts humming it, it is very difficult to get it out of your head!). The vocalist had the whole group singing in rounds and had us all involved. It was fun. The concert ran for half an hour.

There were many Tea Ceremony students dressed in their beautiful kimonos preparing the tea for us. One girl in particular displayed the Traditional sequence and method of preparing the tea. We watched her with keen interest. This included scooping the tea into the bowl, adding water using a special ladle, whisking the tea with what looked like a shaving cream brush, turning the bowl to the right and then serving.





But before the tea was served we were given a sweet which is meant to counteract the bitter taste of the tea. It has a white outer layer and is filled with sweet bean curd. A very, umm, interesting sweet.











The tea was quite frothy yet nice to drink. From left to right: Tina, Marie, Lauren and Me (Jodi).The girls were encouraged to have a go at preparing the tea in the Traditional way, we weren't going to turn down that offer. We all got to scoop, whisk and turn the tea. We had a type of tea cake to eat before tasting our own concoction. I had body shivers when I tasted mine as I had obviously gone overboard on the 'scooping-of-the-tee' part! None-the-less, it was a special experience.

Reading Record

I (Jodi) am not much of a reader, but having a lot of spare time on my hands I have had the pleasure of reading at school. Here will be a record of the books I have read during this year;

1 - "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time"
By Mark Haddon
A quick and easy read, yet very intriguing, written from the point of view of a boy with Autism who is trying to solve the mystery, who killed the dog? A very interesting insight into this unique perception of the world.



2- "Chicken Soup for the Soul"
By Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen
A book filled with fuzzy-wuzzy stories of the kind human spirit. Some stories seemed a bit far fetched but there were some beautiful and thought provoking stories too. A nice bed-time book.

3- "The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic"
By Sophie Kinsella
A fun read all about a journalist who is heavily in debt, yet cannot stop herself doing what she loves best - shopping. I couldn't put this one down. It sucks you in and involves you.




4- "The Devil Wears Prada"
By Lauren Weisberger
A graduate gains her first job at a high profile fashion magazine despite the fact she knows nothing about the fashion industry. Very soon the job becomes her life and other areas begin to suffer... relationships with her boyfriend, parents and friends become strained as her over bearing boss makes her life a living hell. A story about lifes priorities, choices and maintaining relationships. Hard to put down!



5- "My Sister's Keeper"
By Jodi Picoult
A family, who would do anything to save their daughter Kate recently diagnosed with Leukaemia, conceives a designer baby who is a perfect genetic match. After 13 years of having blood, stem cells and bone marrow taken from her, Anna has had enough and decides to sue her parents to the rights of her own body. A story of what's right Vs what's moral.



6- "Charlotte's Web"
By E.B. White
"What the book is about is friendship on earth, affection and protection, adventure and miracle, life and death, trust and treachery, pleasure and pain, and the passing of time."

7-"Purfume"
By Patrick Suskind
If you're wanting a fast-paced and thrilling plot, this is not the book for you! For a book subtitled, "The Story of a Murderer", there's not much murdering going on! It is cleverly written as you can almost smell the scents described by the perfumer. With a shocking ending, it is a novel for the patient reader. I only hope the movie is better!

8- "The Pact"

By Jodi Picoult

I finished this one in record time, I just couldn't put it down. A gripping tale about life long best friends who become lovers. Emily, trapped by high expectations from her parents and an incident of sexual abuse, cannot bare to live anymore. One night, Chris and Emily make their way to the carousel, with a gun. The gun fires and Emily is shot through the head. Was it suicide or murder? Jodi Picoult leaves little surprises throughout the book. My favourite read so far.

9 - "CSI:Crime Scene Investigation - Snake Eyes"

By Max Allan Collins

Just like the television show. The plot follows the CSI team who investigate a shoot out between rival bikey gangs, a date rape, a bank robbery and more...

10 - "The Notebook"

By Nicholas Sparks

This is a true love story, I loved it. It's about two people who share an amazing connection, and even after 14 years apart, feel like they complete each other. They overcome social status issues and follow their hearts. I watched the movie after I finished the book and I cried. Beautiful.