Living dreams

It's coming up to my first white Christmas. Gotta say, not a fan. I miss the Kiwi Summer Christmas, where Santa comes to visit us via surfboard (according to Japanese folklore). I even miss the Christmas hype and also Coca Colas special Christmas bottles of coke. One of my (adult) students said to me yesterday: Santa is from the north. So he will be very weak in the south for summer? I said I think he wears shorts and a t shirt.

I miss the sun, family and friends. I still sometimes look around at all of the silent, unsmiling Japanese faces literally surrounding me and think what the fuck am I doing here?!?! But then I remember I'm living one of my dreams, and that saying life is something that happens while you're making plans for the next thing. So I'm trying to remember that and enjoy each second this conservative yet insane country offers me.

If I haven't mentioned it before, the older generation here are from another planet. They're TINY, many are hunched over and they all shuffle along quite speedily. This old lady is really close in front of me. She'd be about 4 feet tall.

"Bad Girl" scented incense at the hyakuen (100 yen) shop.

A small wild boar roaming the university grounds, snuffling for grubs.

This cracked me up. It's a person dancing around inside of a blow up elephant costume. How they're breathing is anyones guess. It looked hilarious!!!

A sea otter from Kaiyukan - I'd never seen or heard of one of these cute creatures until I came to Japan!

Sometimes you see these random lines of people in malls - I think they were lining up for a bakery?? The lines stretch for miles. It's bizarre.

One day I had to travel to a place called Midorigaoka - and it required me to take the MONORAIL. Here's a shot from the front.

I was wondering why they Japanese had a monorail - it's slow and quite large, and space is a big deal around here. Apparently it was created for a world expo sometime years ago. And they've never updated it. It's awesome.

Behind that man are real life sumo getting into a van. When they each got in, I enjoyed watching the van sink a little lower on its axles. ROR!!!

My Hello Kitty Bank book and Cash Flow card, with my name stamped into it. It's my childhood and adult fantasies realised all at once!

This makes my heart smile - a girl I taught to write her name. She's three and very bright. Her mother shouted SUGOI!! When I showed it to her.

And a portrait I took of myself, bored observing a class. I'm wearing the mask and hat non-ironically. That's the best part.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Dariin-sensei

I've started working at my new full time job. The people are great and the work conditions are great. I have to wear a mask when I teach :[]. Probably the worst thing is the commute, but I've mastered the art of the Japanese zombie shuffle, changing from train to train effortlessly. Brainlessly. I read on the train, and play Nintendo DS. Sometimes I'll snooze standing up. It's cool.

I trained with two Japanese women yesterday who I would say are in their late 30's, early 40's who have both lived abroad for over 20 years - America etc. They asked me where I was from. NZ? We thought you sounded American! Then asked: what do you eat - hamburgers? No no, I eat a variety of foods just like you. I was peeling a mandarin and eating it: oh! you eat mikan with skin on?? (Because I hadn't painstakingly peeled off the white stuff on the mandarin). Then: I have heard in NZ there are more sheep than people. Is that true? Ahhh...yeah I think it is...but the sheep are not running amok in the cities or anything like that...I was a bit surprised at the questions going by their ages and the fact that they've lived away from Japan most of their lives!

Recently Peter came to Japan and we went to Kaiyukan in Osaka. It's an aquarium with actual sharks (Hammerheads which have always made me LOL) WHALESHARKS which are huge, and other living monstrosities. I had heard that the most common word you hear the Japanese exclaim while looking around is "oishii!!" (delicious). But we didn't hear that at all - it was Peter and I who said it the most. It's a beautiful, peaceful place and I enjoyed it a lot, while feeling sad for the unnatural living conditions of some of the creatures. It's hard because I would never get to see these animals normally, unless I took up deep sea diving - and that's not gonna happen. I'd get the Bends. The penguins were kept in conditions which definitely weren't cold enough, that was the saddest thing.

Sunset coming out of the train station.

Giant Ferris Wheel.

For some reason, these are all over Japan! Have no idea why!

Kaiyukan mascot.

Peter trying to get us free entry...

First glimpse of the place, replete with a Japanese female hollering into a megaphone about something. This place is massive by they way.

^-^

Lego styled fish built into the walls!

Sunset view from the aquarium - the sun sets at like 5pm which is sad for me. But it's one of the most beautiful sights you'll ever see. The sun is huge and red. Perhaps I should look out for a sunrise, as it is the Land of the Rising Sun and all...

Stingray on entry. This got me jumping with excitement but I had no idea what was to come...

Oh - I found Nemo by the way. He's in an aquarium in Osaka.

Oh, hai!

Here's one of Kaiyukans meal tickets - a whale shark. There are two of them, and they are the main reason why people come to the aquarium. Included this so you can see how huge he is!!! Biggest living creature I've ever seen.

Lots of the bigger creatures had little passengers who just hitch rides with them!

Weird guy.

A fish I've never known until now.

Oh, Hai!

A big Sunfish! He was MASSIVE. Like, 20 dinners at least! Nah I'd never eat him, he's too amazing!

Peter watching peacefully.

CRAB BATTLES.

This guy kept following me around. Now I know why.

Dunno.

Now for the jellyfish sequence.

These, with the Sun Fish and Whale Sharks were my favourite part of the aquarium. How can something so delicate and beautiful be so poisonous and painful? And so oishii?

Some quotes I liked.

We got out and all the lights were on :)

Peter-san - oishii.

Cellphone pics are the new Polaroids

On Friday went out for lunch with Glenn to an all-you-can-eat meat restaurant. It's Brazilian, and the waiters come around with meat on huge skewers and shave off bits onto a place. They annoyingly say to everyone "it's elephant" or "it's alligator" when they cut the meat onto your plate - yeah, yeah, yeah just give me the meat.(We didn't laugh). All cuts of beef, chicken and pig were included. Steaks too, plus a buffet of salad, rice and stew. All for the equivalent of $9 (if you class 1000 yen as $10. Literal NZ dollars it's a bit more). Anyhow, it's enough meat to make you turn vegetarian. I think I got a headache from all the meat. But I gotta say, I've felt amazing ever since I went there. This vegetarian diet I've been keeping has been a cost saving exercise and I like it; but nothing makes you feel as good as a nice cut of meat.

It was a beautiful day, so after lunch we went to walk off the meat and have a look around Sannomiya.

Took this at a hyakuen - 100 yen shop.
The sleepy owl that I bought Emily was there!!! I love them!!



Alice in Wonderland: is the chair big, or is Glenn small...?



The tiniest Christmas tree I've ever seen...



A tree...dressed like Santa.



I just couldn't resist this shot. The sky was stunning, so blue and clear. Kobe is truly beautiful.



This owl is REAL.



Look at how amazing this bird is. You can see where those ornaments come from.
It's actually pretty sad. He was for sale in a shop similar to the Warehouse. Hardware, bulk food, cheap clothes and shoes and pets in really small, hot enclosures.



A huge beetle. There were also snakes and massive tuatara-esque lizards for sale. Plus fish, rabbits, chinchillas, dogs etc. The snakes were in tiny little plastic boxes about the size of that beetles box, and they were pressed up against the lids - so I decided against taking a pic out of fear.



And this guy wanted to take my picture, and then I wanted to take his so we got one of those shots where we're BOTH taking a photo of each other!! Hilarious!!

Included this because Sarah and I hung out on Saturday night and did Karaoke. We realised we both have a very similar musical vein, and we did an excellent rendition of this song - she was Billy I was the female back up. Other songs and groups included Faith No More - Epic, Stone Roses - I Wanna Be Adored, Madonna - La Isla Bonita, LOADS of Cranberries for Irish's sake, token U2 although neither of our hearts were in it, Who - My Generation, Damned - New Rose, Ramones, Smiths, Notorius B.I.G and more. The rap bit at the end of Eyes Without a Face was fun. I love the guitar riff at the end. We decided that Billy Idol is underrated.