The Japan Diaries

We’ve been married one year today! Yay Us!

So the Christmas and New Year celebrations are just about over. We’ve had an excellent time, and from everything I’ve heard, so did everybody else. We’ve had taiko drums, Forrest Gump theme restaurants, temples, the fish markets, funky bars high above Tokyo, Fuji sinking into a dusty sunset and excessive amounts of karaoke. And today we’re off to see the emperor!

And of course, Suze and I are finally together. Forever. And ever…

Well I hope everyone is having a good time today. We’re over at Heath and Jim’s place for Christmas again this year. We’ve had an excellent first day here and the second day (today - XMAS!!!), is shaping up well too.

We’ve got a webcam set up again so you can see our escapades. Check it out here:

http://www.alexandsuze.com/webcam.html

So Nova (our former employer) finally declared bankruptcy yesterday after several difficult months. Money troubles that I personally feel they bought on themselves finally got too much and they’ve let all their instructors go and students will just have to find other schools. Sorry to you guys. I hope it works out.

The BBC has a good story on it.

Today was our good friend Heath’s birthday. He is very young. And good looking.

Last night I went to a really fun little party with old students and co-workers in glorious Hashimoto. After the party, I needed to spend a penny and had to get of the train in Chofu - where I missed my last train home. So I walked towards home for about two and a half hours before I gave up and jumped in a taxi. Today, I’m exhausted. I think I might just go have a little collapse in the corner.

Well, I’ve been back in Japan for almost a week now. Just trying to get back into normal life. I had a big weekend. I arrived on Saturday morning and having not slept well on the plane decided to spend most of the day in bed. That night however was my friend Nicky’s birthday and that meant only one thing - party time. We went to Shibuya till the early hours before everyone caught trains home. Which brings us to Sunday and the Tokyo Game Show. A very big event on any Tokyo-based geeks gaming calendar. So I met Clinton and a friend of his there and we hung around before rounding off the geekiness with a trip to Akihabara. Monday was all day gaming. What more could I want. Well… what about time with my beautiful wife! Which brings me to…

Aaaaaah. The wonderful state of Tasmania. Suze and I travelled over most of the island. We saw our families and lots of our friends and everyone seems to be doing really well. Suze did an excellent job of not thinking about work even though we did stay at her house in Queenstown right around the corner from her school. It was my first time on Tasmanias west coast, and I have to say, it really is a spectacular place. The drive from Queenstown up to Devonport has some amazing scenery - huge mountains, forests and a few lakes dotted along the way. While on the west coast, we also went for a cruise up the Gordon river. That area of Tasmania carries strong emotions for a lot of Tasmanians for a lot of different reasons.

Anyway, it’s bed time now. Another early start at work tomorrow.

C’est la vie!

I’m heading back to Oz from September 9th to 21st. That is all.

I haven’t posted here in a while and Suze is getting caught up in the social networking sites. So what have we been up to? Yeah… not much. Everything is business as usual. Queenstown is cruising along. She’s going to have a Goodbye Winter party soon to teach the kids about seasons and they’re going to make gingerbread men.

 

In Japan, I’ve been seeing far too many movies and even the occasional concert. I missed seeing Mika which Suze was disappointed about. I’m sure he’ll come again.

I am full of indignation as the bloody Libs came to our school Assembly this morning and used it as a forum for election campaigning. Our primary school Assembly! Can’t say my 6 year olds cared about the Liberal’s stance on the Rosebery hospital. I was fuming.

I did have the last laugh however… my wonderful class sang a song in Japanese at the Assembly, and one of the patronising pollies gave a big rant, in front of the whole Assembly, about how he knows some Japanese, and how he has been to Japan once. He says in a broad Australian accent, ‘O-hay-oo go-zai-masu. Gosh, that’s a big word, isn’t it kids? Repeat after me, o-hay-yoo go-zai-masu.’

My kids politely humour him by repeating it super slowly with him. 20 minutes later I’m in class doing attendance, which we always do completely in Japanese, and the kids are happily chattering away in Japanese (with brilliant accents, by the way). In slink the pollies to observe the class. ‘Oh, yes’, says I, ‘My children speak excellent Japanese.’ Ha, take that Senator.

I love my kids.