Lets just all pretend I did post something last month.

Uuummmm, what have I been up to lately ?

Work. Work is going well. The school year in Japan goes from April to April so next month, I should be getting a few new students. Nothing really new at work. A few students have left in the last few weeks. Maizuru is a Navy port town so there are a lot of families based here only for short periods, a few years at a time. Students leave every so often because their father has been re-located to another Navy base elsewhere in Japan. We do teach a fair few students who aren’t interested in English at all so this is an on-going problem. Japan is the land of extra curricular activities for children. Most of the children in this country learn and practice a handful of activities after school and on weekends. Calligraphy, piano, dance, sports and ‘Juku’ which is basically tutoring for all school subjects after school ending as late as 10pm. A lot of kids do these activities not necessarily because they want to go but because their parents worry that they will look ‘different’ if they don’t send their kids to them like everybody else. Early February, we had more cooking classes with the kids. This time it was chocolate fudge for Valentines Day. I ended up cooking chocolate fudge 18 times over 5 days. I hated the sight and smell of chocolate by the end of the week.

Outside work, I’ve been pretty busy.

I have been to Tokyo quite a few times lately to see my girlfriend Junko. It is either a 10 hour drive or a 4.5 hour train ride. A regular train for two hours from my house to Kyoto and then a 2.5 hour Shinkansen to Tokyo. Tokyo is mind blowing. The streets are like the Show bag pavilion on the busiest day of the Easter show. Absolutely Manic. Trains are packed like tins of sardines. Going into a packed department store requires a bucket load of patience and energy. Everything you’ve probably ever heard about Tokyo is true. It has to been seen to be believed. Lots of great design, architecture and things to see though. Certainly the most ‘ahead of the times’ city I’ve ever been to.

Locally, I went and saw my first movie in Japan a few weeks back. Well actually, not so local. I drove an hour each way to go to a large cinema complex that has some better movies than my cinema nearby. Roughly $13 each way in tolls plus petrol plus my $21 movie ticket. About a $60 movie trip but it had to be done. I Couldn’t live in Japan for a year and not see a movie. I climbed another mountain nearby. This time ‘Akaiwa’ san. The name translates to red rock. The top third of the mountain was covered in snow so it was quite tough trudging through deep snow. There was a great from the top looking across this part of northern Kyoto out to the Japan sea. I Went to Kyoto mid last month to meet my Junko for the day. We visited a few temples, Nijo castle in the centre of the city and had late lunch at a famous Kyoto udofu restaurant. Udofu is a local dish in Kyoto city of boiled tofu cubes. It sounds boring but it’s not at all. As I’ve said before, it’s largely about delicacy in Japanese cuisine. I have become good friends with a temple master and his wife at a temple 5 minutes from my apartment. I head up there every so often to relax. Yes, Buddhist priests etc are allowed to have wives. They took me out to dinner at a classy restaurant here in Nishi Maizuru with their son about month ago and later that week he gave me a men’s kimono as a present. A perfect fit.

Spring is now here, so the weather has been slowly getting a little warmer. Off to the beach in a month or so and maybe a few more mountains. The ‘Sakura’ or cherry blossom season is almost here in Maizuru. The season usually lasts a few weeks and begins down the warmer areas of southern Japan and moves north up to Hokkaido. It is the most famous flower in Japan and heavily promoted overseas when it comes to things Japanese. People across Japan get out to local rivers and parks and even on the streets during the Sakura season to sit under the cherry blossom trees and have their ‘Hanami’ parties. Looking forward to these.

Haven’t tried much in the way of strange food recently. Although I have been told to try ‘basashi’ ……dried horse ….like beef jerky. No thanks.

Nothing else really blog-worthy. Im on a weeks spring holiday at the moment so if I get up to anything interesting, ill make sure to blog it. All in all, having a great time. Have been here 8 months already. Time sure is flying.

This posts pics : A Valentines Day cooking class, a typical Japanese wedding in a Tokyo temple, me at the top of Akaiwa san, Kinkakuji temple in Kyoto (not real gold, just gold foil), Wakasa bay sunset, Wakasa bay (look at the humidity on the ocean), Tokyo fashion and empty Sake barrels in Tokyo.

Take care everyone,

Tim