JANUARY 16th & 17th

"Dancing, dancing, I'll be a dancer. I'll be a dancer; dancing on the stage." A yellow walrus with swinging hangs sang this to us in a childs voice with a British accent at an Italian restaurant here in Japan. Um... Yea, It was a bit disturbing. Actually no it wasn't a bit disturbing, it's became painful. Originally it was thought that the toy was Japanese or Chinese but once it was determined that it was English (EHHHHHHHHHHHH!) everyone, patrons and employees included, loved this English thing. Ehhhhhhh!

The meal was fantastic! Too bad the gent that runs the joint has to move because of a disagreement with the land lord. Serious Argh! Fortunately Kazi is in good with the man in charge as you can see if you go to the gallery-o-pix. = )

Today was spent in Asaka! My home away from home. Teaching in Japan has changed quite a bit for the AETs because there are now 5 +1. Five for the Junior High Schools and one rotating AET for the Elementary Schools. Nifty stuff. Also it appears that Asaka is backing away from the JET Programme because it costs too much. I'm very happy for them. It definitely makes life easier when you get to stay somewhere for one full month.

Something I found out that disappointed me was that there are various teachers in Asaka that do not want AETs in class with them at all. It seems selfish to me that a teacher would leave a native speaker in the teacherís room keeping them from the students. They have a chance to hear someone that speaks the language nativily. Let your students have the chance you never had. Hmm.

On a completely different note - hiheels and Starbucks.

Gone are the HUGE platform shoes (thank god) and in are hiheels (yea!) but there's something missing. The ability to walk in them! I'm not the only one to notice this either. Jacek has seen it too. I think I've seen a handful of women walking in hiheels without stubling down stairs or even on flat surfaces. Honeslty, they don't know how to walk in heels. Someone needs to invest in a 5 minute lesson into EVERY hiheel sold. OY!

Starbucks on the other hand had me cheering for whoa! When I walked in it was different. "Konichiwa" greeted everyone that walked in instead of the typical Japanese greeting. Nicely, nicely. The prices were pretty standard compared to the US. Nicely, nicely again. Something about the store was different from Japan too. I could feel it, and it was welcoming. Had we the time it would have been great to just chill out and enjoy the atmosphere. But, alas we were on our way to Asaka dai-ni-chu. Maybe we'll hit another Starbucks. I'm very interested in taking a few minutes to chill, read, and enjoy a cup-o-hoto-cocoa. Mmm.

Time for sleep. Nothing is planned for tomorrow which is a really neat way to start the day. Sadly, Kazi got back about 25 minutes ago from work. He said this is normal. Sigh. His work is killing him. Oyasumi, er, ohayo.

01-17-2005 11:14 am
- posted by garyploski @ 1/17/2005 11:14:00 AM