i had a fab enkai at 'torusan' on friday night! i was the first person to arrive and i was convinced that i must be in the wrong place as it was just before 7 and we were supposed to be eating at 7... (japanese are always punctual, no?!) i asked a couple of people in the restaurant if i was in the right place - in japanese of course (oh yeah, i'm THAT good now!) and they reassured me that i was! luckily, the next teacher to arrive was a man who speaks excellent english so we chatted for a [View Full Entry]

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Laura, Daniel and I went out for food last night… we’re always keen to find a different restaurant to eat in so that we can sample lots of new yummy food! As we were walking down the street, we stopped outside a dance studio where Laura and I love to watch the hip hop classes! As we had Daniel with us (who speaks excellent Japanese) we asked him to go in with us and ask the teacher if we could join… the entire class just stopped as we walked in and they were in fits of giggles at the site of [View Full Entry]

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I LOVE my bike! I couldn’t wait to get home from School yesterday so I could go out for a ride! I cycled for a good half hour and discovered parts of Saga that I’d never even seen before! I’d also never watched the sunset in Saga so it was really beautiful cycling down the streets and watching the sky change colour! When I got back, I made sure that I locked it up to a metal railing as Laura’s bike was stolen from outside my apartment a few days ago - yikes! Apparently, things like umbrellas and bikes are considered [View Full Entry]

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we woke up just before lunchtime on sunday and tucked into mindy's birthday cake for breakfast! we then set off for ohori park and had a really relaxing stroll around the lake and various gardens... they also had a separate japanese garden, which was absolutely beautiful! we were starving by 3pm so found a chinese restaurant and had some of the yummiest chinese food i've ever had! again, we absolutely wolfed our food down and had to sit there drinking jasmine tea for half an hour until we felt able to stand up again! we had another look around the shops [View Full Entry]

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laura and i took the train to fukuoka on saturday to spend the weekend with mindy. it was her birthday last week so we surprised her with a big chocolate cake! i thought that mindy would be craving a huge burger and fries (being american and all) and so i suggested we go to the hard rock cafe for lunch (turns out she went there on her birthday as she had had the exact same idea!) she said it was really yummy food and didn't mind going again! we had a HUGE sandwich each and an extra plate of fries as [View Full Entry]

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I think I’ve only taught 2 or 3 classes today, even though I was given a timetable at the start of the week, which said I should be teaching 5! The schedule seems to change every 5 minutes and, although they write the changes on the board, nobody thinks to translate these for me! All my classes are learning their speeches at the moment, ready for a performance next week. These speeches are SO dull and I feel so naff when I have to perform them… speaking in really unnatural sentences and very simple English! It’s fun to go round the [View Full Entry]

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Long weekends are such a good idea… I feel as though I’ve barely been at School since I came to Japan! So Laura and I set off very early on Saturday morning. We stopped off for a drink and a chat with Mindy in Fukuoka (as she couldn’t afford to come to Hiroshima) and then got the bullet train to Kure City (where Sarah lives). She invited everyone to stay at her house as she said she had 5 rooms… we all assumed that she meant 5 very small rooms but oh no, she had 5 bedrooms! And various other rooms [View Full Entry]

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I had a fun evening last night… I went out with Laura and Daniel and we met up with Katie and Andy (the foreigners who I met at the station!) and we all went out for some food. I desperately need to buy a cheap bike from somewhere as my legs are aching from walking around everywhere… though on the plus side, my trousers are starting to feel much less tight! (that could also be down to the fact that the cake fairy has not yet found my desk in japan!) So last night, I jumped on the back of Laura’s [View Full Entry]

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I am so bored of talking about ME! And I never thought there’d come a day when I’d say that! But I have given my self introduction speech to so many classes now that I’m saying it in my sleep! They find it fascinating that I’ve visited so many countries, as most of them have never left Japan. But I’m surprised whenever I show them the photo of my parents as most of the students ask ‘is that your boyfriend and your sister?’ - seriously! I’m always telling my parents that they look young! One girl then said today ‘Woah, that’s [View Full Entry]

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so it’s back to square one as far as the teachers are concerned! i can’t believe that they’re acting as if the weekend never happened and that they can’t speak a word of english! at least it’s much easier being around them, knowing that they are really sweet and friendly deep down! when i left the staff room this evening i said 'osakini shisurei shimasu' which loosely translated means 'apologies for leaving before you' and that went down quite well - lots of people then acknowledged my presence and said bye! i taught my first few lessons today … i had [View Full Entry]

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