Hi everyone.

Two months and a day I’ve been here. Time is flying by. Before I know it, it is the weekend again. I haven’t really had a chance to be bored yet. Whether it is being taken shopping, lunch at a student’s house or dinner at another’s, there is always something happening over the weekends. The teaching is going really well. In a couple of weeks, there is ‘observation week’ where parents come and watch their children. Should be interesting. A few naughty kids I am sure will be angels when their parents are watching.

I have had a good couple of weeks just past. Last weekend, I had lunch at some really wealthy student’s house. The woman picked me up on Saturday morning and took me food shopping and then back to her and her husband’s house for lunch for about five hours. On their block which is about 1700 square metres, they have two houses. The first house is a 130yr old traditional Japanese farm house passed down through the husband’s family.
The second house is a Log house built entirely from imported Canadian spruce. They stayed in a log house in Canada on holidays in the late 80’s and liked it so much , they flew a few of the builders out to Japan to build them one. While I was there, they played a full early Kylie Minogue album for me. It was the thought that counted.
On Sunday, I, the boss’ family and two students had a bbq down at Kanzaki Beach. Not your usual Aussie bbq of sausages and steak. We ate rice, fish, roasted tomatoes and pork and miso soup. Very delicious all the same. On our way back we stopped at Fujitsu onsen for my first onsen of 2006. Aaaggggghhhhh. Very relaxing. An onsen is a Japanese hot spring bath. It is a public bathhouse usually with natural hot spring water. Depending on what part of Japan you are in, the water can be 100% naturally boiling hot or the further it needs to come up from under the ground, it my need to be heated. They can be found in and around the cities, in hotels or out in the mountains etc.

I have started my Japanese lessons again. Every Monday for an hour. I am also learning how to read and write Katakana and Hiragana. It is now autumn here so it is cooling down and the occasional rainy day. A typhoon came very close to this part of Kyoto a couple of weeks ago but detoured the night before it was due. It did hit the far south part of Japan killing 9 people. Thinking about doing a few hike’s in the coming weeks around the Maizuru region with some students and other teachers. There are some good ones to be done very close to various mountain temples and non-active volcanoes. Maizuru Mountains can have the odd wild boar and black bear that need to be looked out for.

After 2 months, my freight finally arrived in Japan and is being delivered this weekend. Looking forward to some warmer clothes now I am in autumn. Next week I will be able to start practicing some Japanese cooking with my cookbooks on hand.

Thanks to everyone for all the emails. They make me feel like I am one hour away not nine. Here are a few pics of Kanzaki beach, an onsen and some from a trip I was taken on to Kyoto City with some students a few weekends ago.

Take care all,

Tim