Countdown Boredom

Am still tired after dancing the night away at Gerards birthday party on Saturday night. Am locked in a state of boredom/restlessness I think bought on by the fact that I am only 2 and a half days away from seeing my Mum! I can't believe it will have been nearly 9 months since we last hugged! Also anxiously anticipating our first fight (there will be many) knowing that the walls here are so much thinner. Oh well at least the neighbours won't know exactly what we are saying. Thank God I have Dan to mediate. Mum thinks the sun shines out of his arse of course.
Today's classes have been weird, I'm at Dan's base school and I had girls coming up to me and literally screaming because they saw us together at the supermarket yesterday. They asked if he was my boyfriend. Like, duh. How many sightings of us buying toilet paper and breakfast cereal together do they need. Me finally comfirming the truth was like dropping the bombshell of alien sightings. They found it all so unbelievable. Do Gaijins really have bfs and gfs?
We did a boring 2nd grade textbook question today about what team/club you are a member of. After just 2 of these classes I feel I can expertly predict the type of student in correlation to the type of club activity they do. There is always one girl in the class with glasses and very short hair who is in the choral club. The big boys who look like they eat a lot of katsu don do judo. The funky girls do art.
Dan is in Yamaguchi city today doing prep for an elementary school seminar he is teaching in June. Thus I will set myself the task of scouring and re-scouring the house this afternoon. Mum will find the dirt.
Plus, did I mention, I BOUGHT MYSELF A FRICKIN iPOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It really is the bomb. I am also going to (maybe) buy myself a digital camera this afternoon, I found one on special for a really good price.
Was so un-co eating lunch today I kept dropping my chopsticks. Didn't even drink on Saturday night due to driving. Ashamed at lack of bounce back now that I'm 26!

Kansai Weekend Tour Day Two

Day Two saw us heading into Kyoto from our Kameoka ryokan. The way we got there was the fun part. We farewelled the ryokan staff (all of whom spoke great English) and headed down to the riverside. There the group boarded 2 fiberglass boats that took us down a huge rocky mountain chasm through a mixture of calm waters and white-water rapids. It took us about an hour and a half, and we had 3 men on board to guide the boat. One old man rowed and another 2 helped guide the boat with long bamboo poles. It was exhilarating to clutch each other tightly on the boat and group scream as our boat descended what seemed to be vertically down a rapid, hearing the bottom of the boat thud against the sharp rocks. Of course it was in reality probably not quite a sheer drop. White-water boating is a bit like skiing though, a gentle slope is all it takes. A very bonding experience. Our tour guide told us that Japanese people normally take the ride in almost-silence!
There was a photographer stuck high up on a rock taking photos to sell back to us, now thats a boring job. We also had not one but 2 boats come up alongside us and tie their boat to ours, hoping to sell the hot food they were cooking on board their boat!
We arrived in a touristy little spot called Arashiyama. I bought some gorgeous fans. The area is famous for croquettes, or ko-ro-ke as the Japanese call them, I had fresh hot potato and pork croquettes for lunch, followed by ice-cream. There is a shop there that claims to have sold the very first soft-cream (snow freeze) ice-cream in Japan. I personally went for their range of homemade funky flavours, including tofu, cherry mochi, sakura (cherry-blossom) etc. I chose kinako flavour, kinako is sweetened ground bean, I absolutely love the stuff, and that ice-cream will be forever memorable. All in all a very nutritious lunch! (Am currently struggling against a daily An (sweet bean paste) Mochi (ground rice paste balls) dipped in Kinako addication. I hate to think what will happen when I leave Japan.)
We split off from each other at Arashiyama to check out the various temples, shrines and even a monkey park. It was lovely to wander around on my own. I also got some unique to Kyoto omiyage called yatsuhasi, yes people, even more sweet bean!
That evening we headed to Kyoto to get sorted at our ryokan (a grotty city one in comparison to the fantastic country retreat of Kameoka) and went out for dinner. Now most Western tourists are looking to try the local cuisine. Not JETs. For many of us living in rural locations the bottom line was, it has to be Western style food. We headed off with our tour leader to a local Mexican joint she knew. This is where it gets interesting. Our group leader was a CIR from Arizona, near the border of Mexico. She grew up speaking only Spanish til she was 7 years old. She then learned English at school, came to Japan and learned Japanese. One of the Japanese locals comented to me that her Japanese was so good you wouldn't pick she was a gaijin over the phone. So we are in this Mexican restaurant in Kyoto, she orders the food in Spanish because the chef lived in Mexico for a decade. Truly one of those wow moments. The food there was amazing, we ordered everything on the menu to share and chatted the night away over pina coladas. I think the restaurant was called La Luna and my goal is to go back there. That place had an amazing atmosphere, dark and edgy with Mexicana decorating every surface.
We then all met up again and went to on a special tour of shrines and temples that had been lit up for night viewing. It looked stunning and we were lucky to be there at the right time to catch the festival. There were crowds of people out to watch performances and to shop at the souvenir shops. I was ovewhelmed looking at the girls dressed in their beautiful kimono.
Back at the ryokan I took another onsen before bed (at that stage becoming addicted to at least 2 a day!) which along with the pina coladas knocked me out for another blissful sleep. Bring on Day Three!

More Expensive Meat...

Thanks to Selene, check it out...

www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3247692a11,00.html

Islands In The Stream

Well, due to going out to Mishima island on Mon/Tues, my week seems to have flown by. The trip out on the boat was hellish, it was very windy and at one point I was sure the boat was going to tip. The captain even culled the engines for a few minutes because it was too rough. Needless to say I arrived feeling sparkling and fresh. Not! I wouldn't know, but I swear it's a feeling as bad as childbirth must be. Thank God the trip back was OK, although just sitting inside the ship before it has even left the dock makes me nauseous, the smell of it, just by sheer association.
I can't complain though, I wouldn't not go to Mishima if I could choose. I love walking around and going in to the little shops and speaking to the people in Japanese. It's nice to touch base with them as I usually see them only once a month. I was so proud of myself for having basic conversations. One lady told me my Japanese was "pera-pera". I thought it meant adequate enough. I looked it up in the dictionary and got a shock when I saw it meant fluent. Of course she is just being nice, it is far from that, but nonetheless a confidence boost which is what I badly needed with my spoken Japanese. I'm studying more!
There is a very small but famous herd of cows on Mishima island. Their meat is horrendously expensive. A small steak of Mishima beef will set you back $50 at the local hotel. Oh New Zealand, how I love thee.
I had my first day back teaching at my base school today. We started with a stern school assembly in the gymnasium after candy wrappers were found in the rubbish bins. I had 4 classes, they all went really well, I am feeling so positive about the school year. Ironically, now that my "mother hen" Sakuma-sensei has left the school, my relationships with all the other teachers have improved. They are talking to me a lot more. We are all stepping up to the plate.
I will have to go blanket shopping this weekend to prepare for Mum's stay. She is so nervous she has stopped emailing me.
Last night I had my first hanami (hana-flower, mi-look) , which is basically going out with your mates to sit and picnic under the cherry blossoms. It was really beautiful and something I'll definately do next year, hopefully we'll be able to crank up a barbeque and do it properly. We ate bentos (boxed meals) and I succeeded in cracking Sarah across the nose quite painfully with John's frisbee as I attempted to assualt Christine. Luckily I have forgiving friends!

Happy Birthday Meeeee!

Yep, today it my very last day of being 25. I leave this place with mixed emotions, lots of fantastic memories made this year but I'm also liking myself more and more as I get older. I reckon my 30's will rock. Will 26 Rosie be as fun as 25 that is the question?
Had a rockin' time last night, Ellen and her mother Margaret (who I met before when she and Ellen's dad stayed 3 months ago) and her friend Jodi came to stay and check out Hagi. Margaret cooked us some great Aussie food, meatballs with mashed potato! We got through 3 bottles of red wine and I have to admit I rolled to my futon last night. This morning in the office I was embarrassingly unproductive and achieved nothing more than watching the first half of Shrek 2 on the laptop.........we cured our hangovers with okonomiyaki that we cooked ourselves at the restaurant. Oishii.
We are off now to drive to Tamagawa to onsen (while contemplating the mysteries of life) and then go to Christine's house for my birthday party. Excellent.
The cherry blossoms near me have just popped out in the last couple of days, it truly is amazing. Like the life of a samurai warrior, brief but beautiful.
I have 2 big packages to open tomorrow, one is Hagi glass from Ellen (!!!!!!!) and one is from my Mum. I suspect there could be trashy magazines in that one. Life is good.
Only 2 weeks tomorrow til Mum arrives!