Hey Mum, guess what?

I figured this was the best place to tell you that I've stuffed the ligaments in my knee and will be on crutches and suffering through physiotherapy for the next 3 - 6 months. Oops.
Which means no skiing this winter, no swimming until at least March and no running until June. Perfect timing, huh?
Still, no worries.

And on a lighter note at least I will be eating well:

Yes, you are looking at pudding that makes your, uh, chests bigger. Yummy.

This is awesome!

Ok, is it wrong for me to still be amused by the muppets?

My bad

So I know I've been a bit slack lately with updating my blog but Mums constant nagging has finally paid off so here you go.

Lots has been happening but just recently we had Halloween recently. We planned to hang out at James' house and I thought it would be a fun idea to take a whole lot of face paint. Um. Yeah.

James was a pirate, Amy was cat-Hermione, Charles was Hedwig and Shak had maori tattoos all over his face. It was good times.
Also, exciting news: Just in time for winter a new Baskin-Robbins 31 flavour ice-cream shop has opened in Hagi! Shak and I have agreed to meet every Saturday until we have eaten our way through every flavour. Oreo choc-vanilla was good but I'm dreading the green tea ice-cream. Yuk!

Sports Day

Around late August / early September when the weather is at its muggiest, all the junior high schools and elementary schools have a school sports day. Aside from being ridiculously hot and having at least one child collapse, its a pretty fun day. There are two teams (red and white) which compete in a variety of events, and accumulate points in order to get a big flag at the end of the day.
However, before we get started everyone has to stretch (safety first):

Then we get into the games. The tire drag can get pretty violent:

But the giant ball relay race is usually worth a few laughs.

One of the highlights is the dancing competition. The red team took it out this year. Although white teams tribute to Michael Jackson was pretty moving.

Korea

Back in July Lucie and I hopped over to Korea for a long weekend and had a blast. It rained a bit on the first day, but we hung out in Burger King (nonexistent in Japan) until it stopped then hit the markets.

This guy came racing past me at a crowded market. Dude was ripped!

That is raw chicken with no covering or anything. I was tempted, but after paying $20 for a bag of cherries from another street vendor I decided to give them a miss.

We also ate lots of food:

Did some cultural stuff:

Went clubbing. Unfortunately we only knew the korean words for large pitcher of beer so we got slightly tipsy then went to the DMZ (demilitarised zone between North and South Korea) with massive hangovers:

Thats a live mine behind me and the entire border was lined with fencing like this and machine gun towers.

Good trip!

hey

well, not a lot has been happening. We did just have Golden Week, which is a five day weekend. I stayed in Hagi. It was great!


I did go out and get some photos, but I only really liked a one of them, so here it is:

Also, last week we had a public holiday on Wednesday, so a group of 6 ALTs went to Spaceworld.

I will post those pictures once I've had time to edit them. >_<

shopping

I will never get over the pure randomness of japanese goods. Here are a few photos from the last couple of weeks:

I was seriously tempted to buy this shirt. It sums me up perfectly >_<

Yesterday Nori, Shak and I drove to the city (50 mins) to buy Shak his first guitar (Nori and I were so proud). I tried to tempt him with this beauty. Who doesn't want a guitar that says 'We need your soul', but I couldn't convince him.

This was a game for a Nintendo DS. I was first attracted to it by the scary zombie on the front. Then I realised what it was called. I didn't buy it - my english is dead enough.

What is wrong with this picture?

I don't know about you, but a bag with a skull and crossbones does not really strike me as all that lucky. Even if the eyes are stars. I was more tempted by the Wallace and Grommit bag.

Food

A few weeks ago it was Nori's birthday, so out came the recipe book and I created this monster:

Yep, it has 31 candles - you should have seen it when they were lit. Shak and I took it round to Nori at work, and he then insisted that the three of us go to my place to eat it. It was gooooood!

While we are talking about food, I had a bit of a craving the other day for jelly beans. Luckily I found a shop online that had them in stock, and this is the result:

1.8 kilos of pure sugary goodness. One week later and I am barely down to the top of the Kirkland sticker. Craving solved >_<

Ouch

I fell over yesterday.
Ok, so this isn't actually my knee. But it felt like that at the time.

I'm in bed feeling manky

At least, I was. Now I am at my computer feeling manky. The Reason:

This is nikuman, which is basically meat inside some soft dough / bread stuff. It tastes kind of like a sausage roll. Anyway, last night I went to the 24 hour shop opposite my place and thought it would be a good idea to try a new flavour: custardman, which is custard inside the soft dough / bread stuff. It wasn't too bad . . . until about midnight. Then I found myself hugging the toilet for the rest of the night. It wasn't pretty.
This morning I called home for a bit of sympathy, and all I received was maniacal laughter - thanks, Dad!
Haven't eaten anything today - too much effort. About the only good thing is I get the day off work.
I'm going back to bed!

nothing interesting, just a quick moan

So today I am at one of my larger mountain schools - it has 19 students. But thats not the point. I caught the bus this morning and was chilling at the back with my ipod on just relaxing. Until the next bus stop. A guy got on, saw me and came and sat down directly in front of me. I wasn`t bothered - its a free country, right? - until he started turning around and staring at me. He would stare for a couple of seconds then face the front again. Stare, front, stare, front. I was trying to ignore him and not let him ruin my good mood. But then he reached over his shoulder and dropped a coin. I`m not exaggerating! He put his left hand over his right shoulder until his hand was over the back of his seat, then dropped this coin right next to me. And why did he do this? So he could stand up, stare at me, say 'I'm sorry', pick up his coin and sit down again. By this time I was pretty creeped out, but I was hoping that was the end. Oh, how wrong I was. About two minutes later he started up his turn and stare routine again. I was considering confronting him, but then I would have to acknowledge him, when he turned around again and said 'do you speak Japanese?' I gave him a stare then said no and looked away. It seemed to work and he didn`t turn around again.
Now, I know that part of my job is internationalisation, and I usually enjoy talking to random people about New Zealand and Japan and stuff, but there is a right way to go about something. I mean, if this guy had turned around once, said hello and introduced himself, I would have had no problem talking to him, but this was just too weird. You may say he was trying to build up the courage to talk to me, but it was a really creepy vibe! Maybe if he hadn`t tried the coin thing it wouldn`t have been so bad, but who knows? Ok, moan over :P

Mum nagged me again so here is the latest from Japan

Although she did show remarkable restraint and managed at least 7 minutes of normal conversation before bringing up my lack of bloggage. As usual my excuse is sheer laziness. That and my english is getting worse and worse. Seriously. I am relying on downloaded podcasts (that is like recording a TV programme except it is a radio show and I play it on my ipod, Dad) to maintain my english ability, which might not be the best idea, especially considering people calling in tend to introduce themselves as 'Sheryl off of Yorkshire', or 'Matt off of London'. It is that or Japanese engrish, sorry engLish.

Speaking of, while I was christmas shopping I came across this in a perfume display:

I didn't have the heart to tell the cashier what it said. Although seeing as it was surrounded by other perfumes that weren't in boxes you would think they could figure it out.

Someone who is good at figuring stuff out is the Grublet. I usually let her out of her cage for a run most evenings, and the other day while she was exploring my bedroom, she found the box that I keep her food in. The box with a latch. It took her about 12 seconds to chew the lock off and dive on in. Unfortunately, the lid locked behing her. heheh. I like this photo because she looks really shifty. Sorry its on its side - laziness again :)

And finally, this was from about 3 weeks ago outside my apartment. I didn't have time to get my proper camera so this is from my cell phone. It really doesn't do it justice. Haven't seen a good sunset since, mostly because if it isn't raining its snowing!