Already???

So last night around 9pm my friend texted me and asked if I could lend him a hand with something. All unsuspecting, I agreed. I assumed it couldn't take more than an hour, especially considering I had to be up at 5:30 the next morning to catch my bus to school. 3 hours, 2 coffees and a pile of chocolate later, this was the result:

My friend insisted it was time to put the christmas tree up in his shop window, and he refused to believe I'm not a big fan of christmas (except for the chocolate fish!).

I can already hear mum playing christmas carols while she makes mince pies. :)

SNOW!!!!

Yep, we had the first snow today and man was it cold! I was at one of my mountain schools and it snowed there from 8:30 until 3:30. At least the students had heaters in their classes - the teachers room was freezing!This is me waiting for the bus. I had knee length woolen boots on, 5 layers, a beanie and 2 hoods and I was still chilly!

Winter is definitely here! Oh, and I'm down to 7 living fish.

the next post

As I said in my last post, last weekend was the Hagi Jidai Festival where I wandered around and played games and stuff. This is one of the games:

You get a plastic hoop with paper in the middle and a bowl for about $1.50, then the idea is to try and scoop as many fish as possible into your bowl before the paper rips. However many fish you catch you get to keep. Now, I admit I didn't exactly think it through, but I figured I'd be lucky to get 1 and I really wanted to give it a go.

I caught 10 fish. 10. Bugger. After carrying them around in their litle bag, I decided I should head home, so I wandered back to the bike park. Unfortunately, someone had knicked off with my bike. I was not happy. Thankfully Lucie lent me her old bike, which was a horrible ride but at least I could get around.

2 days later ( and 2 dead fish later, although I reckon thats not bad) I was on the bus at 7:30am heading to work at one of my middle-of-nowhere schools, and right next to one of the bus stops was a bike that looked suspiciously familiar. That night at 10pm I went back with a friend and sure enough, it was my bike. The only damage was that the chain guard had been ripped off. My friend got his mum to drive their ute out, and they brought me bike back to my apartment. I was stoked. The next day I sprained my ankle and yesterday I woke up with a sore throat. So things are great:)

finally, an update

Well, lots has been going on in the past month including halloween, tea ceremonies, getting hit by a motorbike, and heaps of other stuff, so here are the pictures:

(Mum, this means you're going to stop nagging, right?)

Um, yeah. I was riding my bike back from the supermarket and a motorbike T-boned me. I did a great dive over the handlebars and ended up with the great big bloody cast for a few weeks. Sorry for not telling you, Mum.

A group of us went to a tea ceremony house where we got to take part - well, I couldn't but I got some good photos which I'll post sometime. Kneeling in the front are James, me, the tea ceremony lady, Shak and Lucie.

These are the kids of Sasanami Elementary school. We had a party. It was fun. My arm was still in a cast, though. Grrr.

These are the kids of Koma Elementary, all three of them. Our Halloween party was awesome!

Last weekend was the Hagi Samurai Festival. I got to take part in my first year and Shak and Lucie did this year. I think I preferred not being in the parade because it meant I could talk to my students, play some of the games (see next post), eat a whole lot of junk and just wander around. Below is the princess of the parade. She was adorable!