My year of teaching and experiencing living in Japan is nearly over! Sniff sniff! I have been a little slack keeping my blog up to date but here are some photo highlights from October and November…enjoy! (it’s not the last so keep checking!) October in brief... *Amy's parents and grandma came to Shizuoka and we went to Fujigoko (see previous blog) *Kindy Sports Day - It was a beautiful day and the parent paparazzi were definitely out! *Road Trip - Amy and I hired a car so we could use the GPS to get to Saitama Arena near Tokyo as we had tickets to the Mariah Carey concert. On the way, we stopped to do some shopping at the Gotemba Premium Outlets Shopping Mall - great! We left with (what we thought was) plenty of time ... read more

There was a festival in our street!!! Last Wednesday, as we walked home from kindy, I thought there was going to be a hard rubbish collection, as there were boxes and old tables on the sides of the street. I couldn't have been more wrong...it was actually people setting up their stalls ready for a festival in our street!!!! Amy and I get excited about a lot of things in Japan, but this was extra special! We LOVE festivals and couldn't believe how close this one was to us! We went for a walk, literally down our stairs, to check it all out. People were setting up their colourful little tents and beginning to prepare festival food and amusements. Up the stairs, at the temple, preparations had been made for the evening, including branches and wood ... read more

A weekend of birthday celebrations for Amy began with a dinner at Doma Doma on Friday night with the kindy staff. On Saturday night we went to an izakaya with Matt, Simon and friends of friends. On Sunday, Amy's actual birthday, we had a barbeque on the beach! We were well prepared, plenty of food, drinks (including Japanese Passion Pop), fireworks and Aussie stubbie coolers! We even bought a barbeque for the occasion! The weather was perfect and the drinks were flowing well into the late afternoon and evening! When we were all packed up, the party moved to Our Boozer, where shots were had and sauce was drunk! A great, very memorable day and night!... read more

After a lot of pestering, mum and dad finally decided to come and visit me in Japan! Sunday Amy and I just arrived back in Tokyo from Hokkaido and checked into another hostel, ready to meet mum and dad the next morning. Mum called that night and said that their flight had been delayed and they were spending the night in Kuala Lumpur. Now our plans for me showing them round Tokyo couldn't happen, so instead of hanging around Tokyo for the day, Amy and I caught the shink back home in the morning. Mum and dad arrived in Tokyo later and came straight to Shizuoka (mainly cause Tokyo was too scary) and Amy and I were waiting for them at the station. After we showed off our super cool car park, we walked around the ... read more

Disneyland was amazing! I loved it! It was so colourful and clean - there were even cleaners cleaning the surfaces of and in between the rubbish bins! Being school holidays it was, of course, packed! That didn’t stop us, however, from going on as many rides as possible! Using our entry ticket, we could gain ‘fast passes’ to the most popular rides. This meant we could come back between certain times and only have a 5-10 minute line up, instead 60-90 minute. The rides were better than I expected - the fast rollercoaster ones were definitely my favourite! Splash Mountain was also great, similar to the Log Ride at Dreamworld but 100 times better! When we were in total darkness, the ride dropped - of course we were laughing hysterically the whole time! We were a ... read more