Arrr Capt'n...tis Halloween Week!

For the past week I've been a pirate. A pirate with a monkey sidekick and a really cool sword. It's been a fun but exhausting week so I'm going to entertain you all with pictures. Here I am with some of the other kids teachers (from left, yours truly, Moko, Miho and Yasuko).

And now for some promised pictures of cute Japanese kids in Halloween costumes.

This is Yuuki. Yes, she is kawaii but don't let her cuteness fool you. She can scream 'no' as loud as the next kid and she's only 4 years old. Her costume rocked though - check out the pumpkin tendril things throughout her hair.


These munchkins are Erina (who is SO quiet - in her Stitch ears), Tomoki (in his scream mask) and Tomoka (in her witch outfit).


And this is my crazy, crazy, crazy class. Say hi to Yuino (she's the one who screams NO JAPANESE when I ask her to stop speaking Japanese), Mayuka (it cracks me up when she says my name...its hilarious) and Masanao (he's nutty and doesn't listen to me but he's one of my favourites). Recently, they have been entertaining me by pinching their noses and seeing how long they can keep their nostrils sucked in...try it, it's hard.


And this is Kyouka - my favourite student. She's 8 years old, brilliant, teaches me Japanese and at least once a class she makes me laugh so hard I almost pee my pants. She arrived as Cinderella but immediately asked for my pirate sword and wouldn't put it down. Cinderella with a pirate sword! And in a nutshell, that's why she rocks.


So here's my 1000yen costume ($10) consisting of mainly 100yen store finds and stuff I made myself. I found the pirate hat, monkey and belt scarves at the 100yen, the tiny vest thing for 350yen at UniQlo and the striped socks (which made the costume), were a present from Elspeth's Shinobu sensei, who didn't want them for her pumpkin costume.

I received an email from my wonderful parents (who, by the way, sent the MOST AMAZING package this week) and behold, the 2006 Elliott pumpkin and the accompanying email, which is frickin' hilarious;


Laura & Christopher

In keeping with what appears to be the 2006 Hallowe'en theme - Pirates, we attach the 2006 Elliott pumpkin. You may not be aware but you both chose to be pirates

For Laura : "Add me more time in the bilge room pump'n swill but NO increase in me pay? Arrr, boss, let me tell ye where ye can store that hook!"

For Christopher "Ye bent my ear with yer lubberly questions WITHOUT tryin a reboot first? Arrr! It's the plank for you, ye mangy cur... and thank ye for calling Tech Support!"

Aye maties be taken care of yourselves and BE SAFE.
LOVE yer Mom & Dad

AARRGGGHH !!!

Happy Halloween, maties.

These are a few of my favourite things...

(I'm sorry for being MIA - work has been crazy, weekends have been for exploring and nights are for sleeping...)
For your enjoyment - A list of a few things I've been loving lately...


1) Books designed for kids to learn Hiragana and Katakana.



I've been trying to learn both for some time now and just staring at the character on a card is not helping. I found these books one weekend and since then I've learned 26 Hiragana characters and read my first word in the real world! I could read that the store near the train station in obu sells sushi (すし)!! It felt awesome to be able to read something. Talk about motivating.




2) Samurai re-enactment festivals



One weekend I was doing some Halloween costume shopping in Sakae when I found myself in the middle of a samurai battle. There was a festival (autumn?) that featured floats and then in the intersection people dressed as samurai would fight (these battles were complete with background music, smoke machines, popping rifles and swords). After the battle they would all stand, the crowd would clap and then the next float would roll down the main street. Simply, it was awesome.






3) 100 yen Stores



Yes, I drone on and on about how awesome they are but seriously people, THEY ROCK! The stuff you can get for 100 yen never ceases to amaze me. Everything from tools (yes, tools for a buck) to slippers, to food, to toys... Here is a picture of some of my favourite 100 yen store purchases (includes a teapot, a scarf, picture frames, candy, paper, etc). Some places even have 300 and 500 yen stores. In Kyoto I bought the best set of measuring cups EVER for 3 bucks. I had seen them in another store for 1000 yen - haha, take that expensive international store!

[too bad I don't have an oven...these make me want to bake]


4) The Conveyorbelt Sushi restaurant in Nisshin



On Sunday I visited Elspeth in Nisshin and we decided to try out the 100yen sushi restaurant near her house. Unfortunately, it was raining and the buses had stopped (they stopped at 6pm!?!?!) so we got a bit wet while walking there but the fabulousness of the restaurant made us forget about our wet jeans. It was huge, clean, beautiful and there was delicious sushi whizzing around on a fast moving coveyor belt! I ate more sushi than ever before and it only cost 900 yen! We had a great time trying to figure out how the coveyorbelt worked and which type of cake we wanted for dessert (yes, there was cake going around too!!)(This was the best place in the world!) We waddled out of the restaurant into the rain and back to Elspeth's. Sorry about the blurry photos but the sushi was really whipping by!






5) Microwave Hello Kitty Cake



Elspeth bought one of these at the 100 yen a couple weeks ago and I got an excited phone call from her telling me the fabulousness of the hello kitty cake. On Sunday we bought some and made them at her house. I now understand the insanity that is Japan. Only here would you be able to make an individual sized chocolate cake (in the shape of hello kitty's head) in your microwave in 1minute and 30 seconds.








6) My new sneakers



Let's see...polka dots? check. Cute? check. Cheap? Oh yah baby ($12) check. Cheeky? check!

7) Cute little Japanese kids in Halloween costumes

ooo...You'll just have to wait for these photos....

Day Trip to Inuyama

[Lunch = some absolutely MASSIVE toast. The only place that appeared to be open in Inuyama was a small cafe run by an older lady. The menu included toast, some 'interesting' sounding sandwiches and weiner coffee, oh wait, that was Viennese coffee (haha, Elspeth - say it out loud!)]

Adventure #1: Kiso River Rapids


After taking the 40 minute shuttle bus ride up river, we hopped in a boat with approx 20 other people and started down the river. After a couple minutes we started to get the sneaking suspicion that maybe they put the foreigners in the front for a reason. Poor Elspeth got the worst but they did have a tarp to wrap around your shoulders, which did help.




The guide was pointing out these rock formations that were supposed to look like objects (everything from glasses, to cats, to camels). I could only see the lion formation. It was just nice to see the countryside and shoot down some rapids, even though they were smaller than Becky and I wanted.


This is Inuyama-jo (from the boat), which according to my guidebook claims to be the oldest cast in Japan (built in 1537). We decided to leave the castle for another Inuyama trip because Becky is all castled-out!




Here is a short video of our boat ride, for your amusement.


Adventure #2: Uraku-en and Jo-an Teahouse (aka Becky's first matcha experience)



The day was absolutely gorgeous so we decided to end our Inuyama trip with a relaxing stroll around the garden and some tea at the tea house, which is a national treasure. It was built in 1618 by the tea ceremony master Oda Uraku (Oda Nobunaga's brother).


[has anyone else noticed my obsession with bamboo?!]






Tea - First we were given a chestnut tea sweet that was actually pretty good. My favourite part of this was the bamboo (surprise, surprise) knife-thing that you used to cut and eat it. Then we drank our matcha, which Becky described as a spinich-grass-smoothie. I on the other hand like matcha.



After hanging out near the river for a while, we headed back to the train station and to Inuyama Station (we had been near Inuyama yuen station). We were hoping to find something to eat but it appeared that the only thing on Inuyama's main street were hair salons. We decided we needed meat for dinner so that meant Outback's in Sakae. We spent the next couple hours eating large quantities of cheeseburger and watching all of the unfortunate foreign guys with their Japanese girlfriends (you know the ones...the creepy foreign guys whose reason they are in Japan is to get a girlfriend). We came back to my apartment, watched some Grey's Anatomy and then called it a night. After all that fresh air, river rapids and tea house-ing, we were all exhausted.

Rain, rain, go away!

[Front to back, Left - Shinobu, Tamoko, Miyuki, Yasu & Right- Matsuda Manager, Mateo and Izumi]

On Saturday night some of my staff went out for dinner! This is the first time a group of us have gone out since the welcome/farewell party in July. We actually went back to the same restaurant, as we had received a coupon for throwing the party and it had to be used by the end of the month. We ate great food and drank some awesome cocktails (I was loving this orange/fruit concoction) and in the end, we only had to pay 1000yen. Shinobu dropped some of us off at the train station (in her BMW-baby) and we headed home on the local train, where Yasu was attacked by a huge moth (think Silence of the Lambs people). I got home, couldn't sleep and ended up watching movies into the wee hours of the morn.
[Almost the same picture but this time, I'm in it]

Sunday morning I got up bright and early to meet Elspeth at the train station at 9:30. Then I got a text from her that she had slept in, which turned out to be a blessing as I was not ready (I can waste time really well...I have no idea where it goes). Instead we met at 10:45 and hopped on a train to Hamamatsu. When I left my apartment it had just looked cloudy but by the time we were on the train, it was pouring rain. I was convinced that it would stop by the time we arrived because we had to go save the turtles!!

The rain didn't stop when we arrived and of course, I had not brought my umbrella (STUPID - I mean, did the European Extravaganza teach me nothing!). Elsepth's umbrella promptly broke after about 2 minutes (and a sharp piece of metal was threatening to poke her eye out) so the first thing we did when we met Becky was purchase new umbrellas. We found an Indian restaurant, where we ate butter chicken and naan and talked. We emerged to find it STILL raining so we moved our chatting to Starbucks (Becky's fav hangout - they know what she likes to drink) and watched a gyoza festival (dumplings) that was trying to go on in spite of the rain, from the window. It appeared to stop raining at one point so I convinced the others to jump on the bus and try to go turtle saving (there is no turtle saving if it rains). By the time we got to the meeting beach, it was pouring again. We put on our 100yen raincoats, rolled up our pants, tried to avoid the absolutelly massive spiders in the trees along the beach road and ventured out onto the beach. I have yet to see the beach in the sunlight...and I guess I have become a little bit obsessed with it. Next time I am determined that it will be sunny and I will be able to actually see the water!
[Did someone step on a baby turtle?!?! OH NO...oh wait...it's just a stone]

After waiting forever for the bus (we had been talking and the first bus drove right by us) we decided that we would head back to Becky's apartment, eat some warm food and watch dvds for the rest of the night. We picked up groceries and movies (only 100yen for a week!) and then made bread pudding in a toaster oven (so good) and watch Desperado. After hot chocolate with Kaluha we tried to read our palms (palm reading had come up in a recent lesson) and discovered that all three of us have rather dismal futures. Elspeth is going to be married multiple times and have many relationships and Becky is going to be injured or in an accident. Mine was nothing to look forward to, either...I just can't remember the details.




Monday morning we slept in, watched War of the Worlds (SO BAD!) and then walked (in the rain of course) to a local shrine and then to Hamamatsu castle. The castle was actually build by Tokugawa Ieyasu and played an important role in some battle. We climbed up to the top and looked out at the views of Hamamatsu.



Because it was raining, we decided to try to find Becky's Aeon mall. We headed back to the city center and took a bus out into the middle of a residential/countryside area. There we found the largest Aeon mall. We ate a fabulous dinner (only $11), looked around and then Elspeth and I caught the train back to Nagoya. On the train we read Elspeth's kanji book, looking for names for my future weiner dog and to see which were the hardest to write.



I love our mini-breaks in Hamamatsu. I must admit, I'm a wee bit jealous of Miss Becky and her cool beachside city!