Hot sake, cold sake...
Spring break has started... although it's still technically very cold and wintery - well, the temps are like Sydney winter.
I went to an end of term party for the school in Niigata. Niigata is surprising very near where I live and this town that we went to is a ski town. You'd think it was still winter because of the abundance of snow!
Here is a pic of the beautiful town Yuzawa, it is still covered in a lot of snow!
I will be in Tokyo later this week but otherwise am not doing much. I should start packing for my return but I am feeling rather lazy.
The party last night was lovely; I will miss some of my fellow teachers who are leaving and I hope that the new students are going to be better. Niigata is famous for good sake; which was great as I drank a lot of hot and cold sake. I don't think that I really got into drinking sake till I came to Japan; I am not really a beer person and I think that sake really compliments Japanese food!
日本に来てから、お酒を飲むようになった! Hanging out with Japanese colleagues is also a very good way of getting to learn about Japanese culture; especially the way men and women react in social / work situations. I don't know how other ALTs cope but I generally think that knowing Japanese is a must! My own Japanese has kinda degraded due to me using way too much casual Japanese ironically from work! I'm constantly having to correct myself to speak more formal Japanese. Having said that, I was recently proud of myself that I could also recognise 店内で召し上がりますか at Starbucks recently. This is a very humble/formal Japanese phrase of saying, "Would you like to have here?".
In other news, one of my favourite animes Gintama has ended. Well, ended sounds final. It's not a しまう situation - or it is since it's regretful (though I'm not sure if I could use shimau to express my regret at something that happened that I didn't do/control) but not final. I will miss it but I'm confident that it will be back when the manga produces more material. I just got depressed and annoyed because I read so many speculations in English forums and boards and I hated reading people's comments; which I thought were not based on facts but speculations. In Eli Ossan2's words まだ始まってもいねえよ。
In my words, また帰えて来てね。
I went to an end of term party for the school in Niigata. Niigata is surprising very near where I live and this town that we went to is a ski town. You'd think it was still winter because of the abundance of snow!
Here is a pic of the beautiful town Yuzawa, it is still covered in a lot of snow!
I will be in Tokyo later this week but otherwise am not doing much. I should start packing for my return but I am feeling rather lazy.
The party last night was lovely; I will miss some of my fellow teachers who are leaving and I hope that the new students are going to be better. Niigata is famous for good sake; which was great as I drank a lot of hot and cold sake. I don't think that I really got into drinking sake till I came to Japan; I am not really a beer person and I think that sake really compliments Japanese food!
日本に来てから、お酒を飲むようになった! Hanging out with Japanese colleagues is also a very good way of getting to learn about Japanese culture; especially the way men and women react in social / work situations. I don't know how other ALTs cope but I generally think that knowing Japanese is a must! My own Japanese has kinda degraded due to me using way too much casual Japanese ironically from work! I'm constantly having to correct myself to speak more formal Japanese. Having said that, I was recently proud of myself that I could also recognise 店内で召し上がりますか at Starbucks recently. This is a very humble/formal Japanese phrase of saying, "Would you like to have here?".
In other news, one of my favourite animes Gintama has ended. Well, ended sounds final. It's not a しまう situation - or it is since it's regretful (though I'm not sure if I could use shimau to express my regret at something that happened that I didn't do/control) but not final. I will miss it but I'm confident that it will be back when the manga produces more material. I just got depressed and annoyed because I read so many speculations in English forums and boards and I hated reading people's comments; which I thought were not based on facts but speculations. In Eli Ossan2's words まだ始まってもいねえよ。
In my words, また帰えて来てね。