Blogs from Hiroshima, Japan, Asia - page 40

Wow, I am getting old. I spent most of today (Sunday, Feb. 12) lying in bed with one of the worst hang-overs in recent memory. Ouch. I was in such an unfortunate state because last night was a birthday party for one of our JET friends. The evening started with dinner at a local izakaya (a Japanese style pub which offers a variety of foods and alcohols). The food was pretty good, much better than I expected for izakaya fare I must say, and the beer was cheap. 400 yen for a mug is pretty darn good in this country. That’d be about 4 bucks CN, by the way. Given the price, I naturally downed as many as I could in the time I had. From the izakaya we moved our party to the Hello Kitty ... read more

I can’t believe that I’ve been in Japan for six months already. It’s crazy how fast the time flies sometimes! I spent a lot of my free time in January at work related functions….here’s a little catch-up. When I was in Thailand for the winter break, Innoshima and Setoda islands merged with the city of Onomichi….so now we are all considered Onomichi City. This changed only a few things for me: my address, my Board of Education and a few additional schools in my schedule. There are now over 100 people that work for the Onomichi Board of Education, which made for a lively 'welcome enkai' (welcome party). They made me get up at the end of the night in front of everyone and introduce myself IN JAPANESE! I was incredibly embarrassed! This past weekend we ... read more

This past Saturday Hiroshima's weather consisted of a tonne of rain, and far too many clouds! Actually, it was the kind of day where there are limited options when deciding what to do. After realizing that there was no point in sightseeing anywhere, my friend Casey and I discussed our options: go to the movies (and pay the ridiculous price of $18 AMER. to see one movie!), go shopping (even though we find it difficult fitting into the small Japanese sizes), OR be Japanese and spend the day playing Pachinko! Yep, Pachinko was by far our best bet! The best way to describe Pachiko is to think of slot machines... because that is basically what they are. But for some reason or another, Japanese people are OBSESSED with Pachinko! I have driven through towns in ... read more

So one of the last purchases I made before leaving my Home and Native Land was a National Hockey League desktop calendar. You know, one of those page-a-day doolies. It’s true that there are a lot of cool page-a-day desktop calendars out there,—the word-of-the-day as well as the Far Side calendars both being appealing choices—but I figured that the NHL one was the ultra super coolest and deserved laying down my hard-earned JET money because it features a different National Hockey League player for every day of the year. That’s 365 hockey players in all. Hot diggidy! I currently have my fantastic NHL calendar where I need it the most: on my desk at work. Not only is it good for checking the date, it is also useful for those times when I am longing for ... read more

I took on a new role today: Santa Claus! or Santa-san as the Japanese call him. I was asked by the Habu pre-school to play the part of Santa for their kids. It was so much fun! When I got there I was ushered through the back door to make sure that no one saw me. I was dressed in a full Santa costume and then brought out on stage to a crowd of 71 little kids. Imagine a room full of tiny faces totally shocked to see this giant, foreign Santa-san standing in front of them shouting 'HO! HO! HO! Merry Christmas!' There a good chance that I was the first foreign person they have ever seen in real life...not to mention the oh-so-fabulous 'man' that they believe will bring them gifts on Dec. 25th! ... read more