End of September Update

Enjoying Sakai / Osaka

There hasnt actually been that much time at home in the last couple of weeks but managed to get along to the Mikunigaoka High School and Old Girls Handball Games on 11-12 Sep (and even got to play a little bit) as well and explored Daisen Park and Nintoku-ryo Tumulus. Just got back from my first ever Osaka AJET event, a pub quiz - needless to say I didnt know many answers but joined an awesome team with some wicked smart girls and we ended up winning the whole thing :)

Work

A lot of things have come to a close at work lately. My first edition of the 6 page English newsletter for foreigners in Sakai has been sent off to the printers, Ive finished my translations of all the history panels on the 21st panormaic viewing floor of city hall, just in time for 25 year 10's from Wellington to arrive in Sakai on Monday - so have been busy getting ready for their arrival.

The business trip to Tokyo at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last week went pretty well. On the Tuesday we were watching the 7th round of the Regional Promotional Seminars and on Wednesday was our debriefing as we will do our presentation in Tokyo on the 18th of November so not long to go now. These are basically a 15 minute speech by different cities/regions of Japan to Ambassador and Counsel Generals to let them know a little bit more about Japan. Out of the 5 presentations we watched 4 used Japanese people and 1 CIR but they were all basically just reading a speech out in a monotone voice (just with the CIR having slightly better pronounciation) but none of them were really engaging so am keen to make ours really interesting and memorable.

Tokyo

Luckily I have worked enough overtime the last two months to be able to take the two days after my business trip as time in lieu and hang out in Tokyo a little bit longer. Highlights of the time there were:

- Going up the Tokyo Tower with Junya, Nozomi and Hitoshi and then sushi till 2am

- Catching up with Joel at an izakaya where the beers were only Y150 each
- Shopping at Asakusa and Kappabashi-doori in the rain (came away with a cute hanko case and a pink Japanese 4-wheeled carry-on size suitcase because it was on sale)

  

- Dinner with Shoko and Junya at the Shinbashi branch of the Belgian Beer Cafe
- Catching up with Nigel by spending the day in Odaiba, looking out over the water, getting lost in Venus Fort and lunch at good old Saizeriya

- Dinner at Tabasa and Karaoke with a bunch of the Meigaku crew - Juliette, Ryo, Don, Akiko, Naomi, Hide and even a couple of people from my Japanese sign language club

 

- Watching the 2010 Japan round of the World Draught Masters Championship at the Ginza branch of the Belgian Beer Cafe and enjoying the free beer and food

 

Yamanashi

With Monday being a public holiday, before I came back to Osaka, I also had time to make the trip out to visit my very first host family (from when I was 11) in Fujiyoshida-shi, Yamanashi-ken. They live pretty much at the base of Mount Fuji but unfortunately it was too cloudy last weekend to see it but Im sure I'll be back soon enough. Its been six years since I saw these guys (when I was last living here for uni) and my host brothers are now 18, 16 and 8 - they grow up so fast!

 

It was perfect timing to visit with Daisuke's (the youngest) school sports day on the Sunday so went along to cheer on the blue team. Had a Japanese picnic with the family and watched each of the year levels compete in two events and do a performance, culminating in the 6yrs doing a military-esque exercise routine and a massive human pyramid. We went out to Gyu-taku afterwards to celebrate. Spent some time at Fujiyama-onsen on the Monday and enjoyed houtou - a specialty of the region before boarding the 2pm train back to Tokyo to get my shinkansen home to Osaka.

Have had a busy last couple of weeks but its been great catching up with old friends and am looking forward to another busy two weeks with the Wellington school kids arriving on Monday.