August 18, 2006

Tokyo Disney Sea

Thats right... I went to Disney Sea during my last week in Japan with Rich.
Tokyo Disney was on my to do list before I left Japan.. It was a lot fun, and scary rides too ;)
Our tickets included 1st class (my first and last time in the ultimate 1st class on the Bullet Train / Shinkansen) on the 6.30 am bullet train.
The forecast was rain... but the afternoon was gorgeous, perfect weather. Due to the forecast, it wasn't that busy either. Overall, a super day!!

Cleaning

My successor is called Kyla, from the UK. She'll be the new JET replacing me, and I had 2 weeks to clean my apartment....

I have cleaned my apartment, and packed 5 boxes for home. Cleaning took a whole day, with the help of my Japanese host mother, Fujikura-san. I can't belived she cleaned my toilet!! Luckily I keep keep it clean.. :-p

Hpwever, the floor needed a good scrubbing... I wanted to keep so many sentimental things.. Fujikurasan wouldn't allow it, too many things she said, so things I couldn't decide about, she threw out or took home.
I also had great fun changing my souji paper, the sliding screen in front of the windows. I never knew you needed an iron!!!!???? I even took photos...









The apartment was cleaned and perfect by July 31st, ready for my successor to move in.

August 17, 2006

"When are you leaving?"

Final week at school
I gave my goodbye speech at my base school on July 28th. It was all in Japanese. I had been preparing the speech for over a month, but nothing prepared to the way I felt that day, saying goodbye to 800 students and 50 teachers, but I managed to save my tears until the end.
I received a bunch of flowers, presented by 2 student council members. It was all quite touching really. Rich actually came on this day. It was great having him there. Plus the students thought he was cute.
Later on I received letters and cards from students. A class photo that they all had signed. Some messages were; I love you Rita teacher: I will never forget you: I looked forward to your classes; You're classes were interesting;I love your cute smile.
A 3rd grade class had signed a book. Inside, one student, Rei, wrote me a little poem and part of his message was: I will try not to forget you. No, I will never never forget you.

That night was my leaving party, almost all the teachers attended, I had to give another speech. I kept it short. After other speeches, we finally ate. Or not in my case. I had person after person coming up to me to say goodbye, filled my glass with wine. Making it difficut to measure how much I actually drank. It's custom, what can you do.
Before leaving, I decided I would walk around the room saying goodbye to teachers that I hadn't spoken to yet. We had 2 hours in the hotel restaurant. 30 mins went towards speeches, and the rest flew by.
My next stop was a second party, at an Italian restaurant, with the English teachers.

Goodbyes
During my last 3 weeks in Japan, I met up with someone everyday to say goodbye. One day I met up with 3 friends. Breakfast was with Karen, and we spent some quality time talking til about 1 o'clock. Then I met up with Nobuko for sushi, we spent time together until 5pm, and then I met up with Mayumi for dinner. Mayumi says "Is there anything you would like to eat before you leave Japan?" without hesitation I said "unagi" (eel). So we had eel and rice. Delicious.
Goodbye was all getting too much. I figured I would see all the people I want to see over with and have my last week to myself.
And that just what I did.

July 28, 2006

Okinawa

On the ferry from Okinawa main island to Zamami island I got terribly burned by the strong sun. I didnt put sun screen on. Theres no excuse really, but I just didnt realise how far south we were, and how strong the sun was at that time of day.
So the next few days my shoulders, back and chest was in so much pain I couldnt even touch it. To make it worse, I couldnt even lie down with the pain, which mean i had sleepless nights.
I went snorling one day. You wouldnt believe it, but a fish bit my finger. Dint take to many pictures on the island. However Norm did, so I'm waiting for a few from him. Here is a picture on the ferry, and one from the main souvenir area.

Hiroshimo & Miyajima Island




















May 19, 2006

Spare time

In our spare time at Nagano Nishi High School, we like to play around. I think the teachers think Jay and I are a little bit crazy.
During the spring vacation Jay and I interview all the English teachers (12 of them) and them made a little profile of them to go on the English bulletin board outside the office. We included pictures of them, and also an anime character that fits their profile.
When the students pass the board, we hear plenty of giggles as the students read about their teachers. It was really interesting getting to know the teachers. I will definitely miss teaching with them, and having a laugh with Jay.



















The picture above shows how many books we threw out when we had a spring clean... Thats only part of what we were throwing out. Still theres more in the office...

This is Yamato and I. He's the only boy in the selective English Oral Communication class of 13 students. They're all fantastic students. Great English, if only they weren't too shy. Here, Yamato and I are performing a skit. (I forgot my lines)

Spring time

Some of you have been wondering if I'm still alive, (thanks Alix, Ed) be sure to know that I am well. I have just been super duper busy lately. The new school year began April, and classes started mid April. Jay (the other AET at my school) and I have been super busy planning our English classes, be it Oral Communication, Current English, Global Educationa or Debate. On top of that, I have been thinking about what I have yet to do before I leave Japan, cherry blossom viewing, enjoying the spring weather, and also putting the monthly magazine together for the other AETs around the prefecture.
Here are pictures of cherry blossoms (sakura) at Zenkoji temple.


What else have I been upto? Oh yeah, I went to Kobe to see Paul. While in Kansai, I went to see Himeji Castle. In Kyoto I went to Fushimi Inari, Sanjusangendo and Ryoanji. Although it was really busy, because it was Golden Week (3 consecutive national holidays plus the weekend) we still had a great time. So much walking and, so many steps!!!

Click on the pictures to enlarge them... sorry.

April 24, 2006

Jack in Tokyo

I joined more than 15,000 in Chiba (near Tokyo) to see one man. His name is Jack Johnson. The train from Tokyo ward area to Chiba was crowded with parents and their children aswell, but they went to Tokyo Disneyland. 30 minutes later, off the train, we joined the trail of people to see Jack.










The concert was awesome!!! We were about a third from the front, and packed in like sardines. I was lucky to have to have small Japanese people in front, so I had a good view. They're polite and pretty quiet too as all I heard was foreigners' voices.

After the rush of people leaving the concert, and the train ride home, we went for a bite to eat, then checked into the hotel at 2am. Check out at 10am... still needed more sleep.

Sunday was a perfect day in Tokyo. Walking in Rapponggi. Visited the long awaited Diesel store, imported goods are to expensive here. Went to Mori Art Museum... Much of the time there was spent in the gift shop, flicking through books, and waiting for the rain to stop. The sun came out and we headed to Harajuku.

Everytime that I'm in Harajuku, I notice a group of women lined up for something by the subway entrance. This time I decided to investigate. It wasn't a line for the bakery or the cafe across the path, because it wasn't busy. A couple of guys in matching jackets which had Johnny's written on the back came to my attention, who were talking to the women. We are onto something, I thought. Rich and I sat on a bench, feeling quite silly, waiting to see what happens next. Suddenly half of the women in line was escorted by a Johnny's guy. We jumped to our feet, and walked beside them, while pretending to be subtle. Arriving at a small gate before a store, the women handed in a pink ticket, then proceeded to a basement floor. We tried to peek into the store, where we saw polariod pictures of, what we assume were Japanese and Korean pop-stars, as their names were on a sign-board by the door. That's all I know, until I figure out how to find out......

I'm happy knowing where the women go, my curiousity over, but I do wonder what exactly is down there. Rich was furious, this little activity has gotten him more curious as to what goes on in that basement....????

After we knew there's no point trying, we went window shopping. Walked along a beautifully tree lined road, where you'd find shops like Dior, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Jimmy Choo... and many more. I did however stop in a surf shop to find another birthday present for my little brother. This time I decided on a Quicksilver t-shirt which had the famous Mt. Fuji and waves painting by Hokusai and the Quicksilver logo to look pretty much alike, well the general picture kinda looks similar. By the way, Hokusai's museum is 30 minutes away from my house.... Also on this tree lined road there was a disney store, and more other toys. I bought Joe little figures of Final Fantasy and some Wallace and Grommit things. For myself, Snoopy stickers, and Rich bought a Lilo & Stitch lunch box.

















It was a late lunch at 4pm. Rich decided we should eat Mexican food. It's rare in Japan, so since we're in Tokyo, we may aswell. With the excitement and wanting a taste of everything, we ordered too much food, we couldn't let it go to waste, it would be very un-japanese of us. After sitting in there for over 2 hours, it was time to catch the bullet-train home, for a much needed sleep.

March 29, 2006

New Zealand

Why the hell not!
I was pondering for so long. Maybe I should have explored more of Japan during the spring vacation, but NZ had something else that I wanted to see, somebody that is. That person is Alexis, and her boyfriend, Wallace. Alexis, those of you who don't know, is my great friend from Uni and we lived together throughout our time in Hull.









The flight to New Zealand was long, 16 hours with a stopover in Taiwan. I had 10 days in NZ. Auckland of course, then we drove to Tauranga. We camped by the beach. The beach was very long, pretty much empty. I had a little swim in the sea, while further down the coast there were surfers. Didnt get a chance to try though! To mark the end of the beach was Mt. Maunganui, which we hiked up, taking about 40mins to the top.
After Tauranga, we headed to Rotorua. The air smelt like rotten eggs. There's quite a bit of volcanic activity deep beaneath this town. It's famous for geysers and hot springs. Okay, it's not really rotten eggs, the smell is sulphur. One of the hot lakes there was a seamy 74 degress C.









I spent the last few days back in Auckland. Alix had to visit the dentist. She was traumatised, bless her. She had a filling, which almost filled that tooth to the roots. She was there for 3 hours. During which I spent the time catching up on my reading in Borders bookshote. I picked a few magazines off the shelf, and a lonely planet book for the Trans-Siberian, took them to the cafe upstairs, got a coffee, and read them til Alix came. I didnt just sit there all that time!! I left the shop for a while to get some fresh air. I sat on a park bench and people watched. Some really intesting people walk by you know, I tried to guess where they're from, but when I heard them speaking Korean, I was totally wrong. On some accounts, I was correct!
I loved the BOOST JUICE bars, http://www.boostjuice.com.au/ they squeeze and blend while you wait... all the goodness in one cup! Gonna have to get myself a blender. Its fruit season soon in Japan, hmmm watermelons!!! Do they have one of these juice bars in England?
For more pictures, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/ritamangan

March 27, 2006

A wedding in Tokyo

You like my new hair?
I'd been looking forward to their wedding for about 6 months. Unfortunately the date clashed with Graduation ceremony at my High School. It was a hard toss, but I really wanted to a Japanese wedding.
The ceremony in the morning was a Japanese style, and I was honoured to be there. In the afternoon it was a western style dinner party, and to follow was karaoke. The whole day really tested my Japanese. But later in the evening, after a few drinks, everyone rattled their brains for the English they learnt at school. Which must have been 15 years or so for most of them.
(Click on the pictures to enlarge them)
























And then... i sang Bon Jovi... we'll we all sang Bon Jovi...


Don't worry... my hair is not an afro!!!