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!