Mukade

It was a sleepless night last night. After watching some of the Olympics on TV, my eyes started to get heavy so I decided to go to sleep. Not long after turning out the light, I felt something fall on me. I thought it was a moth. I kicked my leg to shake it off, then turned on the light to see what it was. Yep, it was a centipede. About 7 cm long. It was the 2nd time I have had one try to make itself welcome in my bed this summer.

Sorry buddy, but it wasn't going to happen.

After a decent drowning in "die centipede, die!" spray, he did just that.

But I didn't sleep very well after that, and my eyes show it today (so I have been told a few times already).

Nursery School

Once a month, I go to the local Nursery School and teach English for an hour or so. Usually we just play games like Fruit Basket, Gokiburi game and "What's this?" game, using numbers, fruits, colours and animals. The photo above was taken after the lesson last month (July), where we learned the names of animals and played Animal Basket (I LOVED calling zoo; all the kids went CRAZY trying to find a seat).

Today, I went swimming with them too. I'll put up a pic from that when I get them.

Going swimming again this afternoon with the Chuugakkou students. Went yesterday and had a blast, so I'm keen to go for it again today.

For pictures go here.

Daremoinai

So I rock up to school this morning, and as I drive into the carpark, I notice the lack of teachers' cars. Yep, there are 5 of us here today. Wahoo! Me, the Kyoutou-sensei, music teacher, social science teacher and the tea lady. Could be a fun day actually - no pressure to do much work.

Well, here's hoping anyway!

Natsukashii!

Well, I never thought I would see it again. But last night, as I wandered to the drink section of 7-11 in Kawauchi, there it was.

MELLO YELLO

And it tasted just as good as I remember. Ahhh...

Jishin ga atta yo!

I knew it wasn't a dream, even though the teachers at school tried to tell me it was.

At 3:23 this morning, there was an earthquake that measured 4.9 and was based in the Tokyo area. There has been a few earthquakes in the year that I have been here, and I have always managed to wake up for them.

First I hear it coming.

It's a rumbling sound.

Then the cupboard doors start to shake.

Then the rumbling gets louder.

And then my futon shakes.

And then I shake with it.

First few times it was a bit scary, but now I'm used to them. Well, so I think anyway.

My Kyoutou-sensei just told me I am too sensitive to earthquakes, and that they are a part of living in Japan. I need to become "more less sensitive" apparently.

I'll try.

Getting to know you

Yesterday, the BOE organised a day full of "Azuma" things for the new teachers who arrived in April this year. They asked me to go along too, and I thought it would be much more fun than sitting at my desk all day doing nothing.

So we met at the BOE at 9am. There was about 12 of us all told, everyone else Japanese. For an hour and a half, an old man spoke about the history of Azuma and how it came to be in its present form. Well, apparently this is what he talked about - after sitting there for 20 minutes and not understanding a word of it I slinked out the back door and headed down to the office to use the Internet "for work purposes".

At 10:30, we all climbed into cars and were driven to a mountain. I was told we were going mountain climbing so I expected it to be tough. Instead, we drove pretty much to the top of the mountain, and then had to walk the last 300m. It was an awesome view of Azuma. Shame I forgot my camera, though. Will have to go back again soon. Apparently in the winter you can see Mt Fuji from there.

So our mountain climbing expedition lasted about 45 minutes, before we climbed back into the cars and were driven to Azuma's Onsen Hotel for lunch. We had fried pork, rice and cold soba noodles. When we all finished eating, we still had 30 minutes before we were due at the next location, so 3 other male teachers and I got in the onsen for 20 minutes. I hadn't been in that onsen during the daytime before, so it was good to sit outside in the bath and actually see the mountains, rather than just stare out into blackness.

After that we went to Kusaki Dam and were given a guided tour. We got to go right down to the bottom of the wall and see where the water is released.

Next was the Tomihiro Art Museum. Tomihiro was born in Azuma, and is a mouth artist. He was a PE teacher, but had an accident when teaching gymnastics and broke his neck. He can't use his arms or legs, but can create amazing art painting with his mouth. If you ever come to Japan, and make it to Gunma you should go to the Art Museum. They are building a new one which will open in May 2005.

And then it was back to the BOE, and then hometime. It was a really good day, and gave me a chance to chat to the teachers who I don't usually get to talk to.

Went off!

So, I went to the yaSya concert on Saturday in Maebashi, and it was AWESOME! He really knows what he is doing, and is an awesome musician. The concert went for about 90 minutes and he had the audience laughing the entire time. Obviously people here in Gunma are big fans!

He demonstrated the STAGEA really well, and did really cool "live" performances. For 2 songs he used the STAGEA as accompaniment (it played midi files) and he played recorder and harmonica. Was so so cool. Afterwards I met him, had a quick chat and had him autograph one of his books I have. Oh, he also sang one song.