Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi!

7 02 2007

Hello Everyone!

 

So its time for another update!  I can hardly believe how quickly the months are passing!  But as they say, time flies when you’re having fun 🙂

 

January has been a good month to me.  As I mentioned last time, I spent a few days with Yui and her family over the New Year basically relaxing and being spoilt.  After that there were only a couple of days left in my New Year vacation, which I spent doing some things at home and shopping for a coat.

 

Going back to work was a little hard.  We were lucky that our first week back was actually only 2 days, of which only one was a teaching day.  The second week back wasn’t as easy, as it was back to normal, and I had to get used to working full time again.  January through to March/April is the busiest time of the year for schools in Japan, because the school year starts in April.  So at the moment we have a lot of prospective students coming in, and we have to give them interviews and model lessons.  That on top of having a day of training on Monday has made the last two weeks very very busy for me.

 

As for my free time in this last month, I’ve spent most of my time hanging out with friends and family.  Early in the month I met up with one of the guys I did training with and we checked out the sights in Yokohama.  Yokohama has one of the largest China Towns in the world, so we spent the morning wandering around there looking through the shops and eating the occasional pork bun.  And from there we went to the Ramen (Chinese Noodles) Museum, which was actually the highlight of the day for me.  It’s a really cool place.  Inside is set up to look like Japan in the 1950’s, and there are around 6 stores that sell ramen from different parts of the country.  Almost every region in Japan has it’s own variation on how to serve ramen.  Hokkaido Miso Ramen remains my favorite.

 

On the weekend of the 13th and 14th some of my cousins from Adelaide were in Tokyo as part of a longer holiday in Japan.  I met up with John and Jacqui on the Sunday to see some Sumo wrestling.  Before going to the stadium we went to the Tokyo Edo Museum, which is one of my favorite museums.  It details the history of Tokyo, so it’s quite interesting.  Then after lunch we headed over to watch the professional sumo matches for the day.  Sumo is always fun to watch, and the atmosphere is quite exciting, even being in the back row….  For dinner we headed over to Shinjuku, and I took them to an Izakaiya, a traditional Japanese bar.  It was a pretty long day by the time we separated, but it was very enjoyable.

 

Apart from that I didn’t get up to much touristy stuff.  I just met up with Christina for lunch a few times, and with Peter for dinner.  And it seems that most Saturday nights after work a few of us go out for dinner and drinks in the local area.  I’m learning that Nerima has a lot of good restaurants.  

  

Oh, and if any one was wondering, the subject line says “Evil out, good luck in”.  Yesterday was Setsubun, when people in Japan toss toasted soybeans out of their house to dispel evil.

 

Keep well!

 

 

 

Michele


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Welcoming the Year of the Boar!

6 01 2007

Hello everyone!

I hope you had a great Christmas and looking forward to an even better
year in 2007!

Its hard to believe that another month has passed!  As always,
December seems to pass by so quickly.  Unfortunately it wasn’t the
best of months for me, with persisting colds and flu, but I seem to be
better now, so I’m looking forward to January!

Being sick however didn’t prevent me from getting out and doing things
🙂  December is the month for Christmas Illuminations in Japan, and
they can be quite pretty, if not as ‘christmassy’ as we are used to.
At the start of the month Peter and I went to Roppongi Hills to check
out their Illumination.  We also went up to the observation deck
there, said to be the tallest in Tokyo I think.  Tokyo is an amazing
city, it just goes on and on!

Work was pretty busy last month as well, but I’m really enjoying it.
This company allows the teachers to socialize with the Japanese staff
and students, so about mid month we had a large end of year party at a
Korean restaurant near work.  It was pretty enjoyable, and everyone
seems to be fun-loving.  With work I also had a training day last
month, and I got to catch up with all the people I did initial
training with.  They all seem to be doing well.  I’m actually on my
last day of holidays now, in total, for New Year we have had 8 days
off.  I wish it was a little longer, but the rest of this week at work
will be only be two days long, and with no regular lessons, so it will
be pretty easy.

Peter and I also went to Disneyland to see their Christmas lights and
parades.  As always, I love that place, but unfortunately my favourite
ride – Space Mountain – was closed for the day.  However, as a special
holiday ‘event’, the Haunted Mansion was themed with Nightmare Before
Christmas characters, so that was pretty special.

On the 23rd we had a public holiday for the Emperor’s Birthday.
Apparently you can see the Imperial Family on this day at the Palace,
so I went along for a look.  I didn’t see them myself (I probably
arrived too late in the day), but I did walk around the outside of the
palace (its a huge place, it took over an hour) and the east gardens.
It was very picturesque, however I think I’ll have to go back in
spring when the flowers are out.  I’ve attached some pictures for you
to look at.


For Christmas day we didn’t make any plans, but Christina pulled
through and we went to the Grand Hyatt in Roppongi for a buffet lunch.
 Believe me, the food was really really good!  And it was really great
to spend the day with friends, even if the lunch wasn’t so much of a
traditional Christmas spread.

Over the New Year, my friend Yui invited me to her house for a few
days.  It was really great time.  She lives near a place called
Hakone, which is famous for its hot springs and views of Mt Fuji.  And
on New Years day we took a bus tour to Tochigi Prefecture.  The bus
tour included a visit to a shrine, a flower park, a shopping outlet,
and a strawberry farm.  Now, I’m not a big fan of strawberries, but
they were really really sweet and tasty!  So those few days with Yui
were spent relaxing, enjoying hot springs and eating really good food
(her mum’s a great cook too!).


Well, that’s about all for December!  Hope you are all looking forward
to the new year as much as I am!  I would love to hear from you too!

Take care!



Michele

 


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first monthly newsletter – november

11 12 2006

 Hey there everyone!

Its been a month and a day since arriving here in Japan, so its probably about time I wrote you all an update, yes??  🙂

Well, starting from the start, I touched down in Tokyo late November 1st, with my flight over being hassle-free and business class all the way (horay!).  I stayed with Christina for the first few nights before going to training, and it was really great to see her since I wanst able to go to her wedding in Hawaii on Thanksgiving.

I had to make my way to the training center in Omiya for AEON on that friday, however our training didnt start until Saturday morning.  So, that friday afternoon I spent wandering around Omiya.  Omiya is actually where my friend Rikas parents live, so Im somewhat familiar with the area.  Theres a pretty big shrine there, and being that it
was Shichi Go San (7, 5, 3) day, there were heaps of families at the shrine getting blessed in traditional clothes.  On that day you are supposed to take children of those ages to the shrine, so it can be pretty cute.

The next week and a little was spent at training.  It was pretty full on in some respects, but actually a lot easier than the training I had with NOVA previously.  Or maybe it was because I was more experienced…  The hardest thing about the whole week would have had to been the fact we were 10 people living in the training facility. We had 5 americans, 2 canadians, and 3 aussies.  Although we wernt supposed to bring grog into the facility, the majority of the others did, and ended up staying up until really really late in the evening. Or should I say morning.  Needless to say, this really really didnt agree with me, but what can you do.

We did have the first sunday off, and then the second weekend.  On the first Saturday, Brooke (another aussie) and me went to Asakusa, which has one of the most famous temples in Japan there.  Its one of my
favourite places to go in Tokyo because you can buy really fresh traditional japanese foods there.  On the second weekend I really didnt do much because we went to karaoke on friday night to celebrate finishing training, and that sort of knocked be about.  Never again will I go to karaoke with a bunch of smokers..  Not very pleasant at
all….  trying to sing in a room full of smokers.

But dont let me give you the wrong impression of my training group, they are a bunch of great people, i just personally dont like to party every night.  And I have made some great friends from training!  Most of us live in Tokyo, so its pretty easy to catch up, not that Ive had the chance yet to, unfortunately.

On Monday the 13th I was off to my branch school to start work.  For the first week there they had to put me in a hotel, since there was an overlap with the girl I was replacing.  But the manager was very organised and that monday we went and did all the paperwork for my id card and bank, and even got my mobile phone.  Other people from training are still waiting!

I started at the school on the tuesday, and for the first few days I was just observing classes, which was nice, but pretty boring.  By Saturday I was teaching full adult lessons, and part kids lessons.

My school (AEON Hikarigaoka) is pretty big.  Theres 3 other foreign teachers (from the US), and 7 japanese teachers, on top of the office staff.  And for students we have about 250 adult students, and over 400 kids students.

Im really enjoying teaching with AEON so far.  The lessons are well structured and the text books are interesting.  Im still finding my feet with kids classes, but once I learn a few more games and get to know my students Im sure ill feel more comfortable.  I work tuedays to fridays from either midday or 1 until 9 in the evening, and on saturdays I work from 10 to 7pm.  But we get plenty of breaks, and we have some other duties which are pretty varied, so it hasnt been boring so far.

Now, back to where we were…  On Monday the 20th I finally moved into my apartment (and believe me, that was an effort….)  And since then I have been putting most of my efforts into just settling in.  The
girl who lived there before left it in a pretty big mess, so Ive spent a lot of time cleaning.  Hopefully by tomorrow evening Ill finally have everything clean to my standards.  Oh, and unfortunately I also caught a cold, which zapped my energy for about a week and a half. Today is actually the first day in a while that ive felt up to speed. (But it wasnt a bad cold)

So between cleaning and sleeping I cant say Ive been up to much.  Ive been into Shinjuku and Ikebukuro a couple of times to do a little shopping and to meet up with people…  Funny thing is that one of my friends (Peter) happens to only be living 2 stations away from me, so we`ve managed to catch up a few times.  Also went out for dinner tonight with some of the girls from work.  The great thing about the station I work at is there are heaps of restaurants around it.  We had Korean tonight and it was pretty good.

Hopefully now with being almost fully settled Ill be able to get out more and do things.  And I`ll have the internet at home from tuesday, so you might be able to see me online more often!


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