yamaonna

there was sooo many things I wanted to write about this morning…  but by now I have forgotten most of them…  grrrr

so, random observations and mumblings….

got an unpleasant surprise for lunch, what I assumed to be a cream filled bun was actually a cream corn katsu filled bun.  big difference – sweet/savory.  now I know I dont like them.

theres a building near me that over the time I’ve been living here has had their garage converted into apartments.  The apartments are going to be really really small when they are finished, but should be very clean and nice looking.  but the thing that worries me is I dont think they put insulation in!!!  and you know, I think this is the case for most japanese houses.  talk about dumb.  considering its too expenisve to build with brick, and they arent allowed to used much wood…  so I think plastic is them main material…….  ara…..

we supposedly entered wet season last wednesday (or was it the wednesday before that…)  but so far we have had maybe 2 or 3 days of rain.  I was told that this is a very bad thing, cause it means the rest of summer will be hot and muggy.  i dont really care since I wont be here….  but apparently wet season in sendai is actually quite cold….  but still humid.

stressing a little about money, cause its the time of the month I have to pay rent…  but after this lot, I only have one more payment, and I think it will only be about 10,000 yen.  so Its good that I think I’ll just make it money wise to the end.  mind you, Im going to try and be very stringent (?is that the correct word?) so that my money will go a long way.  neway, there isnt that many places I want to go now anyway.

heres the dilemma – catch the bus home now and dont get a seat.  catch the bus home in 20 minutes and maybe not get a seat…  feeling lazy today so Im going to take my chances… hence wasting time checking mail and updating this at uni…

Yesterday we went to the elementary school again.  It was heaps of fun!!!  We played a game with about 30 kids, which involved singing a song, then yelling out the names of the items we would show them.  If it was something you would buy in a fruit and veg shop they would all yell out `aru aru` and if it wasnt `nai nai`.  We also did an english version which went down pretty well.  considering I tried to be smart and yelled out the word for carrot in japanese, but got it wrong and said `human` instead.  the kids loved that…..

homework is up to date, which makes me very happy.  now I just have to work on my project… wish me luck!

Im so proud of myself!!!  Over the past 4 days I’ve only spent 3 hours on the internet!

NEway, things have been hectic lately.  Christina and I decided last monday that I would go down to Tokyo on the weekend to hang out, so last week was very busy getting bus tickets and alike ready.  Plus uni is starting to get busy!!!!  This week I have two trips to a primary school to teach and one preparation session.  But thats getting ahead.

So,Tokyo.  Went by bus, which took about 5 and a half hours.  The highway buses here are very easy to use and a lot cheaper than what the shinkansen would be!!!  I left sendai around 3:10 in the afternoon, and arrived in Shinjuku around 8:30ish.  Christina finished work at 9:30, so I hung around till then.  We then went to Shibuya and this classy little wine bar.

We drank and few tasters and then headed back to her b’friends apartment.  We watched ‘Harold and Kumar’ which has to be the sillist and most pointless movie I have ever seen, but a heap of fun at the same time. 

Saturday we went to breakfast at a cafe in Ebisu, followed by some window shopping in Shibuya.  Around midday Christina had to go to work, so for the rest of the afternoon I spent window shopping with some of her friends.  Around 3 or 4 we split up and I went to Ikebukuro to do some anime shopping.  Didnt find much, but also went to Cinnabon for the first time in 2 years, which was a very nice thing to do.  Their peacon-bons are soooo yummy.

We then all met up again in Shinjuku at 8:30 and went to take some print club photos…  over 2 and a half hours later we decided it was too late to go dancing as planned, so it was just to a close bar for some drinks and nibbles before home to bed (at 2 in the morning).

Sunday it was up to eat pancakes, after which christina had to leave for work.  I headed to kichijoji to do some more window shopping and have a lovely lunch at anna millers.  Desert was ‘passion azuki’ which was a cheesecake with passionfruit sauce, and azuki beans…  really really yummy!!!  And then on to Nakano, anime shopping which wasnt very sucessful at all (but good for my purse).

Had to be back in shinjuku to catch my bus at 3:40.  Got home last night about 9:40, just in time to have a bath and go to bed…  what a busy weekend.  Dont ever walk around tokyo in heals all weekend, its a killer……

well, today has been quite pleasant.

been thinking about the travel and places I want to see.  From uni i can see this daikannon – dai meaning big, kannon being a buddist (thats spelt wrong) diety (im pretty sure thats spelt wrong too).  Its a pretty striking image.  its quite tall so you can see it from heaps of places.  I was planning on going for a walk one day to talk a look, but then I found out the thing costs 1000 yen.  so i think I’ll talk a miss. 

oh, here we go, its 100m tall.. it was built by a company, but now its a tourist attraction at a hotel. (the company didnt fare as well i believe)

oh, and yay for me!  I am going to Tokyo on the weekend – finally! Im going to stay with xina and her b’friend.  and Im going to eat pie!  yatta! http://www.imuraya.co.jp/annamillers/  best apple pies in the world!  and the uniforms are funny too  serious…….

hmmm.  what else.  Woke up on time today. had breakie.  class was all right.  got most of my homework done at lunch.  my girls that i teach want to cut back to one lesson from now, which is actually very good for me.  posted a letter and got a card from mum in the mail.  not a bad day at all.

and not stinking hot like yesterday… 

just made really yummy spag cab!  i think today is the first sunday that i’ve actually eaten 3 meals since i came here.

rejoice, for i shall not starve!

repeat after me – there is nothing new out there, dont bother looking, it will only get you into trouble.

now if you know what I am talking about, I fear you know me too well, and I will have to kill you.  (just as a matter of curiosity, please leave a comment about what you think i’m talking about, would be intresting to read…..)

so anyway, an entry.

Today feels like it was wasted. 

Of all days, today had to be sunny and blue skys alllllllll day.  blah.  and I resolved that I was not going to go out.  so heres a wasted day.  There are approximately 5 more things i have to see in sendai.  3 of them require sunny days.  and lately they are few and far between.

Mind you, summer also hit with avengence today.  the max was 28, and humidity is very high. probably within the 80s.  i remember why i dont like summer in japan.  and tokyo would be hotter too.

At least next week end should be sunny.  fingers crossed they are predicting correctly!

ah, what a day!  Im really pooped.

My aim for this weekend was to visit 4 different temples, and you know what, I did it

The first off the list today was the Osaki Hachimangu Shrine, which, once arriving there, made me realize that they really like their stairs in this part of the country.  In tokyo all shrines are on street level….  so I’ve been spoilt.  It was pretty intresting.  Very elaborate carvings and all.  The god that is worshiped there is especially important to ppl born in the year of the dog, and boar.

Then it was back into town to have a coffee and a scone (it was lunch time by then) and then on to the fuidon shrine that’s in the middle of a shopping arcade.  no surprises that this god is the one you go to for good business.  plus in the statues of him, his little dicky pokes out…  quite intresting……   (kinda like on telly, for nappy ads you sometimes see little willies.. unlike they ads in aus….)

then I attempted to go to the mutsu kokubunji temple, only to be told that ‘this bus doesnt go there’ and then at the information center ‘use that bus’ (which i had just tried….) so i decided to go to the other temple I wanted to go to tsutsuji tenmengu.  Took the train, but when I got off realized i could have walked easily….  neway.

that temple was kinda boring.  but the area around it was intresting in that there were heaps of shrines.  Stumbled across a road called ‘shintera dori’ which literally means new shrine road. and they aren’t lying.  theres over 20 shrines in the district.  All new, massive and very quite.  so with my ‘7 color asian tea’ in hand I did some exploring.

not long after that I realized that i could probably walk to the mutsu kokubunji temple from there, so i did.  half and hour later, and testing out my japanese reading skills, I found it.  i was quite happy.  it is actually the ruins of a very old temple, with only this great hall, and a bell tower there.  It was actually pretty run down, the grass needed a cut, but it was the best of the lot, becuase unlike the other temples, there were people there, and kids playing around.  Most working temples and shrines are really quite and kinda foreboding.  Or a tourist trap.  The kokubunji was neither.

And then i caught the bus back.

It was quite a day, lots of travelling around, but i managed to stay in budget.   and lots of walking, so currently, I am hungry and tired.  think I’ll go and have dinner

apples are so big in this country.  no wonder fruit is so expensive…  (contemplations on my breakfast….)

so neway

yesterday I was taken to an elementary school for the first time.  its quite different from australia, but of course similar at the same time.  The grounds are very different.  Only a few building, and they are tall and concrete.  and no grass for the kids to play on.  just dirt…..

They have lunch in side, and then have a set play time inside…..  not like the hour long lunch breaks Im was used to.

But the kids are cute (and i forgot how physical kids can get with each other..) and i had fun (even if it was only for a short time).

And i also joined the local video club – tsutaya!  So last night was spent watching hugh jackman….  *drools*  and partaking of some cherry wine  instead of doing my homework (oh well, tomorrow)

Actually Van Helsing was, um, an intresting movie.  In a way it was utter crap, not exactly predictable, but a bad script and predictable characters.  However, i did enjoy it becuase of that, takes me back to my xina fanatic days….  It was fully of action, and enough plot twists to sustain intrest until the end.  and Hugh Jackman….

thats about all.  going to look at some temples today. despite the rain…  its rainy season by the way.  unpredicable weather.  and like laura, ’20 deg’ has become ‘hot’.  The humidity stinks too.

1 month 16 days til I’m home

i am soooo in shock. 

way.

Like sometime last year I figured out that I had been charged tooo much for my HECS.  In 2002 I did japanese in the summer semester, and was led to believe I had to pay it up front.  So i did.  And then last year I found I had also been charged HECS.  very infuriating.

But another curious thing was that for the past few years I didnt have to pay my student fees.  Everytime I went to pay them it said i didnt have to.

Today I found out why…  Instead of paying for the tution up front, that money went into my student fees.  So after all this time I still have $477 just sitting there….  I must admit its nice not to have to worry about student fees, but its kinda frustrating to find that out now. in the next year it will only go down about $120, so when I graduate uni I will be able to get a refund on the rest. 

nice

um, so I`ll do a proper update and tell you whats been up/down/whatever.

sunday I went to a kimono shop with one of my lecturers and his seminar students.  It was really intresting becuase it was the first time I had actually seen a kimono been put on.  very very complicated, and kinda painful looking.  My lecturer says that for funtional use the wouldnt be tied so tight.  His wife likes to wear kimono and he says she only takes about 15 minutes to dress herself.  which i think is pretty amazing (not to mention skilled). 

And Im not even going to touch on colors, materials, patterns etc.  far too complicated.  If you are intrested in this sort of stuff, theres a book by Liz Dalby call Kimono, and it has tons of great information.  very intresting stuff.

But, alas, as much as I like the things, I will never wear one i think.  They dressed me up in a yukata, and man did i look fat.  my body isnt designed for those things.  zannen desu ne…

Afterwards I hung out with In-Sook, a korean girl I know from uni.  It was nice, just a little hard as both of us had to speak japanese.  We had a great lunch at `surprise donkey` (i kid you not) and then stumbled across a music festival where we watched some drumming.  I wanna learn Taiko!!!!  (japanese drums)  A nice day, but a little tiring.

Yesterday I was a good girl and decided to go for a walk.  I went back to the temple I forgot to take my camera to, and what would you know, high school boys were training on the stairs I wanted to take a photo of.  grrrrrr.  ah, well, consider it a sign, ne?

thats about all.  my girls cancelled class today and Im pretty tired, so Im just chillin at uni til I have to go to the high school….

ciao for now!

a proper entry!  wont you all be glad!

Well, the stress is over!  OVER!  over.  *sighs*

I had to give a speech at this speech day thing, and I was really resenting it.  not only was i unprepared, but i was talking about toilets…..  I really didnt want to go (and today being rainy didnt help….) but now that its over and done Im quite content.  They even paid me too (well, if you count winning a book voucher as being paid….)

so, the toilet speech – the (short) english (rough translated) version…..

Toilet Culture (my teacher wanted me to call it Oto-hime, which literally means “sound princess”.  i was like – no way…  wouldnt want ppl to call me that……)

Coming to Japan from Australia, there are many different customs that you notice.  The biggest culture shock (for me) is when using the female toilets, girls flush while they are ‘going’.  The first time I used a toilet in Japan, I was surprised that soon after people entered the toilet they would flush, and everyone did it!  Afterwards, I asked my friend, and they explained that people flush becuase they are embarrised.  But the biggest shock was the automatic flushing noise some toilets have.  I thought to myself ‘Where is that noise comming from?!?’

Do you know what oto-hime is?  Oto-hime is a machine that makes a flushing water sound.  At the university I attend, almost every toilet had an oto-hime.  When you wave your hand in front of the oto-hime sensor, the flushing water sounds.  The first time I saw it I didn’t know what it was. I thought ‘What?  strange thing……’.  Japanese toilets are very complex.

I surveyed my japanese, chinese, korean and australian friends about what they thought about flushing the toilet while ‘going’.  The results are as follows –

All of the japanese girls said they flushed the toilets.

And the chinese girls also said the same.

Half of the koreans girls answered that they didnt.

And all of the australians said that they never did.

How about americans, or other counties people?

I understand and knew why Japanese girls flushed the toilet while ‘going’, but I was surprised that chinese girls and korean girls do to.  In my own personal opnion, I dont mind either way, but I dont like wasting water.  Australians all have the same opnion, because Australia is a very dry country, and so water is very important to us.  Becuase of that, we dont have oto-hime in Australia.  In Japan however, I think that from now on, oto-hime should be installed, becuase they are enviromentally friendly.

Thank you very much.

and that took over 4 minutes…….  Im just thanking God its over.

and now, bed.