Not so happy this afternoon.....

This is me....

2 seconds after swallowing my filling...

I'm sure it will be fun looking for an english-speaking dentist in Hamamatsu...

Bum

Ken's mum making mochi (sticky rice stuff -used in loads of dishes)

Inuyama castle

Ken and his dad at the entrance to Inuyama Castle.

Inuyama castle from a distance

Umeshu and soda. Sarah's favourite Japanese drink (they are plums if you are wondering...).

We are off to Nagoya today

We are getting the shinkansen to Nagoya to visit a friend of mine. I went to university with him many moons ago and we will visit his home town. I think it is still completely covered with snow so I should be able to get some nice pics.
Happy new year (No christmas holiday here but new year is important).

A slightly blurry picture of us at my Atsumi-family birthday party. It was lots of fun.

This is the Hamamatsu Christmas tree. It is impressive. When you first see it you think... err..bit tacky... but it is a big surprise when it starts the animated light display on the hour.

A public wedding, underneath a Christmas tree. In Japan it is popular to pay westerners to read short texts. They read stuff in Japanese that they don't necessarily understand but the bride and groom don't care. The important thing is the smart westerner in the wedding photos.

This is a box of oranges - Six for 7500 Yen plus tax.... For reference, there is approximately 200 yen to the pound. Yep that's right... that's over �5 per orange. Next to it (not shown) is a mixed box of 6 fruits for 8500 Yen...

Work?!

For the first time in my life I will be working on my birthday. For a lot of people that doesn't seem so unusual but I have never worked on my birthday before. It should pay for the evening festivities so it is probably a good thing!

We will also be working on boxing day which will feel strange too.
I have discovered that I share my birthday with Ricky Martin. I know that he will be working hard too, shebangin and suchlike(I will teach 'shebangin' to my students tomorrow).

Please note the pained expression - this guy really suffers for his art.

I can't buy paracetemol...

... it's not for sale in Japan. Don't ask me why, I don't have a clue. But maybe that's not a bad thing....

Link - Paracetemol causes headaches

Job opportunities in Turkmenistan

If you are looking for work...
Try here
:)

New years resolutions...

I tried a beverage that I hadn't had the pleasure of trying before - Shandyguff (シャンディーガフ). Luckily it tastes better than it sounds. It is ginger beer (with real beer). I have also made sure that I am using the correct vocab in the izikaya. When we arrived I thought we needed to order 1 beer (ichi biru) but that gets you a single bottle of beer (and happens to be grammatically incorrect too... whoops). The correct phrase that we have been using has been Draft beer, 1 (nama biru, hitotsu) but I had noticed that I seemed to be a little short-changed on volume (less than a pint) and last night I learnt that I needed to order dai jokki (large beer glass) which gets you just under a litre.
We started talking about new years resolutions and mine will probably be something like "I resolve to continue drinking lots of beer". I really hope I can stick to this one. Beer is much better for you than tea as this article shows-
Evils of tea
Please send me your new years resolutions. Bung them in the comments section if you don't mind others reading them.

Christmas lights in Hamamatsu

Some other blog has a picture of the flashy tree in hamamatsu. It is more impressive in real life (it is animated). So click the title of this post or use the url below if you want to see it.
http://wanderinginjapan.blogspot.com/

It's illegal to walk with a lit cigarette in Japan. I am not sure what helicopters or giant cigarettes have to do with this law but they are obviously very important.

This was a poster seen advertising a club night. We didn't go so we don't know what sort of people showed up but it was probably quite interesting....

Lots more work...

Hmmm... busy busy busy.... the number of hours we have done this week has shot up. Unfortunately this is not entirely a good thing. One of the other teachers was "asked to resign". It is a real shame because he is a nice guy and, from what I can tell, a great teacher too. We will be staying in touch with him anyway and we hope he has every success with future work / plans.
-d

CTL, yippee

My last group 8:30-10pm has "cancelled too late". It means that I still get paid but no need to stick around. Tomorrow I am working 10am-10pm... Keeps me occupied I guess :)
I haven't had any emails yet.... still waiting....
d

Long day today

10:30am - 10pm today. Oh well! At least I had the day off yesterday.
How are you all doing? Drop us an email!
-d

Whenever I see English written on a Japanese product I have to read it. It usually brings a smile to my face....

Those rats might get addicted!! Be careful with those hidden cigarettes! Notice the JT logo in the bottom left. It's a Japan Tabacco logo. I teach an employee of JT and was surprised to find out that JT make cans of coffee and hot chocolate as well. I asked him why a tabacco company makes coffee and hot chocolate and he said "JT makes products that bring pleasure to your mouth". Err ok!

Our apartment - an out-of-date picture

Internet Connection is back!!!

Hello again!!!
Yep, we hadn't paid on time but it's all sorted now.
There is a new link on the left hand side of this site. If you click it then you can install Firefox which is a much better browser than Internet Explorer err.. and it also gives me a dollar!
We are off for a drink tonight. We have had work until 10pm on most days this week so it will be a pleasant change to be sat in a bar instead.
Anyway I am going to crack open another can of beer and relax... Yay!
D

No connection yet...

but while you are waiting for the next thrilling installment...

I told you Japanese toilets were special..

Click here

Offline post

I am writing this offline because we are back to borrowing the neighbour’s connection… I’ll connect briefly to post this message.

I hope you are all getting worked up in the approach to chrimbo. I am sorry that you won’t be spending it together Orlo and Bobagh (cleverly disguised names heh?). Good luck with the visa negotiations B! Japan is our first experience of living abroad and visa bureaucracy is certainly not the most enjoyable aspect. I think our Christmas will be strange but I am sure it will be fun. Christmas in Japan is unusual… The Christian origins are even further removed than the west. It is an entirely commercial venture with many people working on Christmas day and KFC being the ‘traditional’ Christmas meal… Anyway… This doesn’t mean that it’s not a big deal. Hamamatsu is not a particularly picturesque city but decorations for Christmas are everywhere and actually look pretty good. I have some pics but can’t post them at the moment. So you will have to take my word for it.

The temperature has dropped again this week and we are probably experiencing similar temperatures to the UK at the moment. The main difference is the clear blue sky which definitely helps to avoid winter blues.

We had a winter ‘party’ at work… Party meaning an extended lesson for our students where we were paid with as much alcohol as we could put away. Each teacher had to sit with a group of students and ‘mingle’. Then after about 15-20mins we had to swap with another teacher… It was strange!

I am going to leave the message and post it. I’ll let you know if we get our connection back….

Lost internet connection

As soon as we were getting used to it we have lost it.
No internet connection :(
Bum.
Think it has something to do with non-payment of bills but who knows!! Hopefully it should be sorted out on Monday.
D