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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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Good morning and what a beautiful morning it is…..
In true British style I`m going to start by commenting on the weather. It certainly wouldn`t be an exaggeration to say that the weather here is pretty erratic. Beautiful, hot sunny days followed by monsoon rains seem to be commonplace. However, these downpours only seem to last a couple of hrs…brief periods of time in which I seem to be on my bike….ah well sod`s law still applies in Japan I guess!
Rest assured that I am safe and well ensconced in my little apartment in Susami. My roommate and I “Bob”-( the infamous large spider) are getting along well and seem to have a love/hate relationship but always reconcile our differences in the end…..
Enough of the spider anecdotes…..today is my last day at the BOE before I start teaching because tomorrow there is yet another orientation in the prefectural city of Wakayma. Planning on staying the night with the others to have a look around and what not. You could say that I`m looking forward to going somewhere where there is more than 5000 people and somewhere with an abundance of shops/ large money-grabbing coffee bar corporations aka Starbucks etc. Plus as shamed as I am to admit it…..I have yet to try karaoke in Japan so tomorrow night I will hopefully be singing my heart out. I hope I don`t break any windows…………….
So the beach party at Shirahama was fun and I hope you`ve found the time to look at all the photos. I guess us JETs look anything but responsible pillars of the community! One of the JETs actually had everyone back to his house (brave man) and had a huge BBQ party. A room full of beer, Canadians, Kiwis, Australians, Brits, Americans, Japanese was always bound to produce interesting results…
It`s been a good week. Tuesday there was a BBQ thing at the BOE which was a success despite the rain. Much chu-hai and beer was consumed….during the evening I was called the “No.1 friendly JET” but that have been due to their and mine inebriated state! In Japan there is an unwritten rule as follows; what happens on a night out STAYS on a night out. If only such a rule existed in England! Unfortunately this particular rule doesn`t apply to foreigners like myself so upon entering the BOE the following day there was a full blown analysis of how much I ate/drank/sang/smoked.
My “Japanization” is coming along nicely. I have now acquired a deep tan, keep a spare pair of chopsticks in my bag, am constantly changing my shoes and, more tellingly, bow at every instance. However, my Japanese is still very poor but little words such as “kampai” (-cheers) “0-genki desu ka?” –(how are you?) still get me by. I keep meaning to sit down and study it but I think am still suffering the side effects of studying a language. It may be a while before I get over that!
Well best get back to my lesson planning…..lessons start on Monday and want to make sure that the kids learn something about England!
Miss you all,
Sara xxx
PPS Thanks for all the email/text things….it is a strange system but seems to work pretty well! x
previous travel blog entry
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