Day to day stuff...

Well! We are finally starting to really settle in. Many thank yous to David and Nola for organising a shipment of cadbury chocolate and cold and flu tablets. We eagerly await the next one! Having -cold and flu tablets makes getting sick here that little bit less of a worry and they're also kinda like currency here. I'm pretty sure we could use them amongst our western friends to barter for haircuts and possibly obtain Reese's peanut butter cups. Ross was sick about a month ago with a hideous bout of cold and flu which really knocked him out. I have told him not to touch ANYTHING on the trains, any people, any buttons on escalators, etc...(mine and Hillary Clinton's solution for keeping well) but he feels it is necessary to hold the handles on trains so he doesn't fall over when trains come to an abrupt stop. I hear him - certainly I have been embarassed by almost falling into Japanese salarymen laps on the train, but I'm not sick, am I? Last week i puchased these handy little spray bottles of disinfectant stuff for our hands so we have now taken to precautionary spraying between lessons, train rides, etc. It's hard to explain, but Japan features very highly this sort of artificial heating and cooling. When it's raining outside it's like some guy rings every train driver and says 'You know what to do' and then whoosh, you can see this lever being cranked and we all suffocate in the trains. On the other hand, it's delightfully breezy on the trains when he makes the call on sunny days! When you're on a train or in a department store, you can really feel the artificial air and with SO MANY PEOPLE around you all the time it's pretty much inescapable, getting sick. We have joined the gym! I was walking each morning along the river and through a couple of neighbouring suburbs and the park where all the old men (around thirty of them) gather to play mahjong each morning and stare at me as I walk past, and that was fine, except that the weather here is very restrictive. Back home, I walked if it rained, if it was hot, whatever but here the rin is so heavy you get dripping wet all the time, the heat is muggy and sticky and starts very earliy in the morning, so it's hard to exercise outside. We joined Gold's Gym, which is in the next street to us (our friends Chris said we really have no excuse, he and Leigh cart themselves a fifteen min train ride to Umeda to squeeze the gym in before work most days) at the Plaza Hotel. It's cool, every time we go to the gym the doorman greets us! The gym is pretty amazing. The one e looked at with a friend of ours was really beautfiul and cosy (but Ross got asked to leave cos of his tattoo) but this one is big and bustling. There's a big pool, two studios for classes, a big weights and workout area, a huge mat for stretching (very big on stretching here) and a running track outside along the roofline of the hotel - very cool! Ross is very excited and loves talking about the gym. Most of the time he talks about the bathrooms. The bathrooms are pretty special - they have massive baths the size of a small pool where you can sit and relax and soak...with everyone else... We haven't had much of a chance for sightseeing recently but i hope to get somewhere soon. We've been planning a trip to Arashiyama to see the monkeys and the mountains, but we're waiting for better weather - it's been really rainy. I think we'll visit the Osaka Aquarium next - I hope, anyway! We applied for and secured jobs with a different part of our company, ECC Junior. ECC Junior does casual style work like kids English parties (seven hours of fun and games), Kinder and primary school cultural fun and games visits (I'm from Australia, we have kangaroos! Can you be a kangaroo with me! Please? Please don't make me be a kangaroo on my own!) We're hoping to get a few visits to kinders and an English party occasionally too. Really looking forward to this new type of experience. I've also been looking at teaching private lessons too. They're a great chace to meet new people, drink coffee and eat bagels with a stranger, speak in English and go home. Nice, We have had some madness in the cat department recently. Kitty (not to be confused with the big , fat fluffy cat we have) got in a big cat fight with another cat (probably big, fat fluffy cat) last week and it was serious. Laura, a friend from our building had to go and buy a cat cage to take him to the vet cos he was so bad. He has cuts and stitches in his arm and ear and face. They were really infected and the poor baby was really sick , but he's been set free this week and seems much better. It's so nice having pets around! We've started to really settle in, get used to our timetable and our students and are both really enjoying ourselves. It's much easier to enjoy your job when you know what train to catch, what your boss' name is and where the toliets are. Once you have those basics down, you can settle in and have a bit of fun in the workplace. Last night Ross and I headed to Koshien school where I teach on Thursdays. Koshien was hosting a 'Pot Luck Party'. We were running late so we didn't get the full spread but the food was amazing! There was homemade sushi and gyoza and all sorts of yummy stuff and big, texas style muffins from Costco (I have been wanting to try them but as Costco is a bulk place you have to buy 24 to get 1) and chocolates and all sorts of yummy stuff. A few of our friends went too so we chatted to them, played some games, marvelled at the excitement that ensued when Ross entered (Allie's huband! Allie's husband! Allies brought her husband!) and ate muffins. I've missed muffins. It was really nice to see my Japanese staff and students relaxing and to be able to chat to them in Englosh in a more casual setting. Next week, we're going bowling with Ross school, Abiko. Should be fun! OK, more later. I'm off to the gym! xoxoxoxoxoxo

Golden Week Vacation

Hi Everyone!

Time for a belated report on our trip to Hiroshima and Okayama with Leigh and Chris during our Golden Week vacation. Golden Week is a string of National Holidays that all sort of happen one after another early in May, some companies decide to take the whole week or so off instead of having staff come in for one day then be off for another all week long, ECC is one of them - hooray! So, we had about eight days off for Golden Week and we decided to go to Okayama and Hiroshima. In Okayama, we headed to Shiraishi Island, a relatively unknown (to both Japanese and foreigners) small island on Japan's inland sea. We found out about Shiraishi's International villa through our friend Chris. The International villa is thisv amazing accomodation overlooking the ocean with awesome views and awesome facilities at a dirt cheap price of $25 AUS per night - absolute craziness! The deal is that Okayama prefecture decided about fifty years ago that it wanted to attract international guests to the prefecture to see all the gorgeous natural sights, but people weren't coming cos Okayama is little known and not really top on visitors' lists so they built five international villas where they only charge to cover the costs of running the venue and only international guests (or Japanese accompanying an international guest) can stay. Pretty dodgy in anywhere but Japan, but we were happy to go along with it! So we took a bus and a train and a ferry and made our way to the very stunning Shiraishi Island where we spent two days frolicking in the sun, kayaking to neighbouring islands which were so small they just had little shrines on them, collecting shells, swimming (if you're Ross and crazy) and talking to wrinkly old deaf Japanese men who simply want to talk very quickly to you in Japanese and are so deaf that listening isn't high on their priorities. We cooked our own meals, played a lot of cards, relaxed and read and slept in. It was awesome. From Okayama we headed to Hiroshima where we stayed in a cute business hotel with yummy free Japanese breakfast. I have since been trying to research how to make the amazing rice balls we had for breakfast but so far, no luck. We stayed in Hiroshima for two nights and took in Miyajima, the vary famous island near Hiroshima and also meandered through the Peace Memorial Park and Museum - a challenging and confronting experience but worth it, very worth it. Miyajima is an island famous for its big red torii gates and the Itsukushima Shrine which at high tide appear to float on the water. We were there at low tide and let me tell you, there were no illusions of floating shrines as we traipsed in the mud and sand to get the customary photos with the torii gates! We did a little hiking (some more than others!), Ross drank water flowing from a beautiful natural spring (which we then used to tease him later and get him nice and worried about Japanese encephalitis) and we ate these amazing little puffy cream filled sponge cake things (heaven in a maple leaf pastry shape) called Momiji Manju. Awesome. We also travelled by cable car to the top of the island's forest mountain range to check out the scary and crazy and very cute monkeys that live there. Very cool! We headed home on a night bus which was very exciting. We were on the bottom level of a two floor bus and Allie got in trouble with the bus driver three times. Once for wandering around the bus 'exploring'. once for nearly missing the bus at a truckstop, and once for just smiling, I think. Grumpy bus driver.

So, there's the whirlwind synopsis of our trip! School is great, getting better and better and this last one has been our best week yet. We're getting so much more comfortable with how everything runs and are starting to really love our classes. Much love to everyone and more news soon!

And here are some more pics!

1. Our sink

2. Our bathroom - literally a small room with a bath and shower in it

3. Our bedroom - depressing, I know - if anyone sees some good bedlinen, send us a gift! We can't find anything vaguely nice here. I'm working on the walls but we've only been in a week so I haven't done much decorating yet!

4. Our lounge (you can see the door to our balcony too) - fabulous red couch!

5. Impressively large TV on impossibly ugly blue cabinet...but each day it grows on me.

Love you guys! More blogging soon. I promise. :)

Our New Apartment!

Hi Everyone,

In case you're not in the know...we moved apartments last week! We moved to an apartment on the fourth floor of the same building, for lots of reasons really. We have started a comprehensive list of them...see below.

Reasons our new apartment is better than our old one - draft 1

-it has a view

-the toilet flushes with intensity

-it has a red couch and coffee table

-Ross, his guitar and Allie all fit in the lounge room without anyone endangering their lives as they try to pass by

-the bathroom and toilet are not in the kitchen

-we have a shoe closet

-our balcony has a clothes rack and is twice as big

-the bathroom doesn't smell

-an old person didn't die next door within the last year

-the floor is a nicer colour

-our TV is bigger

-the grill and stovetop are bigger

-we have room for guests now

-we have room for four chairs and our dining table now

-things stick to the walls here so decorating is possible

More to come.....

Check out the pics of our new place! More in the next blog too!

1. Our entrance (magnetic door...very handy!)

2. What we see when we enter (kitchen and dining area)

3. Our kitchen

4. The whole space

5. The 'hallway' off the kitchen to our bathroom

Moving!

A couple of weeks ago we decided it might be a good idea to move apartments. We had been toying with the idea for awhile, mainly because our first apartment has a complicated layout where you have to shower then dry yourself in the kitchen, there's only room for two people in the apartment at any one time and Ross bought a guitar... so we decided to look into moving. We also had visited friends in their apartment and been dazzled by the size and beauty of it (and also that it featured highly sought after natural light). Getting a new apartment in Japan involves lots f complicated procedures and a big layout of non refundable key money (about two or three months rent worth of money considered a gift to the landlord...madness). So we decided it was simplest to stick with the company we're already renting from, they deal with foreigners and you don't pay any of the crazy costs. They showed us a couple of places, including one near our friends Chris and Leigh but over the past few weeks we've grown to really love Juso, where we live. We love the energy of the place, the great restaurants, interesting people watching, a big river next to our apartment block, etc. It's actually a cool area to live, especially for sightseeing. We are 40mins from Kyoto and 25mins ish from Kobe. It's a really convenient area. So, with that said, we looked at an aparment upstairs! We looked at a place on the fourth floor (I wax and wane between 'damn these stairs!' and 'great exercise!') and the place is really great. After a few days of tension as we battled it out with another couple who wanted the place, we got it (and they got our old one....). So yesterday we moved apartments! The process wasn't too bad actually.... We (when i say we, I mean Ross) just packed all our clothes still on hangers and all our bits and pieces into our suitcases, trundled them upstairs then spent the next few hours unpacking and rearranging stuff. I can't believe how much stuff we've somehow accumulated in just two months. Some of it is unavaoidable; paperwork, textbooks, sightseeing info, etc but we've also bought bits and pieces for our kitchen,etc. So all of it had to be moved upstairs. This apartment is really cool. We enter and have a pretty good space for kitchen, dining, etc (there's room for four chairs around the dining table so they gave us four chairs, then we had people over last night and all four of us stood in the kitchen dining without touching!), a little room for our bedroom and another room set up as a loungeroom...with a red couch! This thing is tremendous! The best bits about our apartment: -non stinky shower -view of Umeda city, the sky building and the river -big TV -red couch -quick access to the roof of the building Very exciting move. I don't think we'll leave here. Ever. Not even for groceries. Especially as we'd have to carry them up four flights of stairs...I'll keep you posted, we may have to rig up a basket and pully system. This could be fun. Moving day was pretty fun actually, it didn't take too long and during the day our neighbour Laura keep passing by. We don't often see her as we have really different schedules but she has time off for Golden Week so we kept seeing her and her boyfriend Aki. She suggested that we go down to Cospa, her gym as we have been looking into different gyms to see whether we'd like to join. So we took a break from moving and went to Cospa. We walked in, had the start of a tour, marvelled at the pool then promptly left cos Ross was asked if he had any tattoos! Tattoos are still very taboo here (associated with the Japanese Yakuza mafia) among old people and gyms don't let people with tatts be members. It was pretty full on discrimination and it made Ross really uncomfortable, but it was funny afterwards when he just sort of stopped in the hallway, pulled off his slippers (guest slippers for our gym tour!), said thank you and walked out. I think we'll check out Gold's gym next..... Last night we did dinner with Aki and Laura too, they took us to a fantastic Okonomiyaki and Ykisoba place right near our house. The place looks like a dive but serves amazing food. Okonomiyaki is a sort of vegetable and meat pancake served with different sauces and toppings. You generally see it at street vendors but you can also go to restaurants where it's cooked in front of you on a hot plate then kept warm on it while you eat - a very fun dining experience! So this place was great and it was so nice to catch up with Laura and Aki and get to know them both. We finished the night by climbing on top of the roof of our apartment for chats and a quiet drink with a sensational view. It was awesome. Altogether. Not a bad little moving day.

Phots of us!

And we have access to the world now!

Hi Everyone! Yesterday heralded the end to our long wait for internet access. This is a joyful occasion - finally we can chat freely to everyone! This is also cause for concern as i will no longer have a reason to head to the all you can drink soft drink bearing 'Popeye's Internet cafe. A weekly ritual for me, I am sad to see it end. Im seriously considering reading manga and sitting in their little booths watching movies.....oh to be able to show you all Popeye's! So we have officially started to really settle in now and are more accustomed to the rhythm of Japan and our lifestyle here. We have regular schools that we attend five days a week (with Fridays and Mondays off) and we work at each school for about six hours. No marking, barely any planning (just for group classes, of which I have two per week and am given time to plan), its a very restful way to teach actually. The teachers i met here who have stayed a long time (some even ten years), i ask them what keeps them in Japan. They always refer to liking the 'lifestyle', and i can definitely understand why. Many of them are bankers or lawyers or office workers or waitresses or whatever from back home in Canada or the USA or Australia and coming to Japan they are paid pretty well to effectively just chat to Japanese people and act like a wiggle in kids classes. The days of work are short, the pay is reasonable, Japan is an incredible place to live...I can see why they stay. I think for me, the hardest thing to adjust to has been the style of teaching that is done here. I am a bit of a perfectionist and I like to be part of both the planning and the execution of classes I teach back home. I really love plannin lessons! Here in Japan, lessons are pre planned for you - there is freedom in the way you conduct them and what you choose to do but the essential lesson plan is the same for all teachers at all ECC schools. This is great for standards, since all teachers are teaching the same structures and vocab to their students and the lessons are really quite good, but its hard because i find it hard to teach lessons sometimes that I didnt plan myself - it can become more of a challenge to 'remember what Im meant to do next' than what my goal is for the lesson. But, as i said, a lot of the time we are just sitting in rooms, talking with students who are eager to meet us and eager to chat with us. Its a really relaxing way to spend a day of work! We started kids classes last week. They are very fun and hysterically funny. All the staff and parents think the kids are 'so cute' and they sit outside the classrooms watching as we sing and dance and practice the alphabet with their children. The kids classes have students aged from 1.5 - 13. Yep, 18 months old and they come into an English emersion classroom where I sing and dance and operate a puppet for them! Its actually really fun and the songs are cute. I love doing ones that are familiar like Heads, shoulders, knees and toes.....but I also like the new ones 'Hello, Hello How are you....clap your hands....stamp your feet...flap your arms...turn around...." (and yes, there are actions! Kids classes are great, you just sort of act like a member of High 5 for bout 40mins then the next group comes in. Most days i have 2 or 3 kids classes. Ross has more than me though. We also teach free time lessons and Junior High classes and I have two regular group classes too. Free time lessons are where people come to the school and book in for a lesson (max 4 people per lesson) that goes for 40 mins and could be about any topic in the current textbook that we all have. They could also get any teacher that is there on the day. We talk about shopping, sightseeing, family, friends and we practice situations like booking a hotel room or using the telephone in English. Its definitely small talk, but if you get good students who want to chat then the classes go really well. Regular classes are ones where people are booked in for a year of weekly classes with one teacher. The teacher gets a little bit of planning time and we use a textbook that is npt made by the company, its one they could buy at a bookshop and is more widely recognised. Those lessons are pretty fun, they have a range of activities like listening to tapes, chorusing new vocabulary, watching movies, reading news articles, etc. They're longer too - 80mins. I really enjoy planning these lessons (there are no pre written lesson plans so its up to me - yay!) and teaching them. Junior High classes are a bit nutty pbut have been ok so far. We only teach them for 25mins (after a Japanese teacher has taught them) and we are there just to check pronunciation and intonation that they can only get from a natice speaker ("do you" becomes "do ya" and stuff like that). A couple of weeks ago we met this lovely Japanese girl Rumi at a Hanami (a cherry blossom viewing picnic). Rumi lived in Canada for awhile so here English is really good and we chatted for ages. We have kept in touch and ended up going out for dinner with her last weekend, then the following day her and her husband took us out to Nara for the day. We went to Yoshinoyama which is a less common place on the tourist route. Its farther from Tokyo tht we'd usually go if we were heading to Nara, but the Cherry Blossoms bloom later in the year there because its a mountainous area and the blossoms are shielded. We went hiking up the mountain, ate good food and took in a spectavular view - it was an awesome day of sightseeing. We felt so worn out but so proud of ourselves. Rumi also took us to this great Italian restaurant (very hard to come by in Japan, I promise!) with wood fired pizzas. It was delicious. Today is our day off! Hooray, we're meeting with Yoshimi for dinner but i think we'll head into Umeda earlier for a little shopping too. Much love to everyone. We'll try to keep this blog updated from now on. Cheers! Allie xo