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!!