State of the Hiko (or Tara, should you prefer)
I cannot believe that I am about to say this: I haven't posted in nearly two months. More like a month and a half, but it's seriously been so long.
What's been happening? I'm usually out of the house 11-12 hours a day, depending on what's going on. Work out nights I don't get home until around 8:15, normal nights about 7:15 if I am booking it to get out of work on time. Not always an easy objective. But it is doable. It's not all bad, since I do enjoy my job, though I would enjoy it MUCH more if it was not summer and I was not covered in a fine panting of sweat all the time. I do like my coworkers, they are some lovely people. Even if that means staying out all night on Fridays more often then my introverted self really cares for. (For the record, that's been twice, and once was my fault. XD I have no one to blame but myself, and I enjoy going out and having fun with friends)
I have been thinking about the future, and the possibility of moving to work elsewhere in Japan. That doesn't actually mean a new job, I am able to transfer while working for my current company. (theoretically, there was the same possibility with the short lived job, but that was a hellish experience at best, so we shall ignore it). I am thinking very hard about making the move to Osaka. It's super tempting, as there is so much that Osaka has to offer, and if this is my last year in Japan? Then I think I'd want to be in a city that I love and have always thought of as home. It feels like the right choice, but it IS a scary one. If tue transfer came with going to teach the older kids--and I mean the ones who are actually learning via textbooks? I would take it in a heartbeat. All I know is that while I truly love and adore my kids, the part I like best about teaching is the actual treaching part, with textbooks and word games and stuff. The grass IS always greener, and I know I will have hair pulling days, but I miss the thrill of seeing kids understand the lesson of the day. I'm not as good as I'd like to be at teaching life skills. I'm not doing a bad job, but it's harder to come up with ideas sometimes. But you have that everywhere.
If I left for Osaka--a big if at the moment--I would miss all the kids I've been getting to know over the past few months. There is that to consider as well. =/. A few of my kids have told their mothers they don't want to go to school, and that's a little upsetting. But seriously, I think that might be because of siblings or cousins that are still on summer holiday who don't have to go to school and get to stay home with mom. And when you are 2 or not even 2 years old yet? That is cruel and unusual punishment, and I can't blame them. I'm sure that will change.
One of our transfer students left yesterday, and I'll miss him. He goes to the Tokyo branch of our school, and he is just a crazy and boisterous kid who was crazy and a handful, but also really sweet. He freaked us all out in his first week by sleeping with his eyes open. XD. Today, one of mine returns to Osaka, and I will miss him lots as well. He's a sweet ball of can't stay still, and his mom is pretty awesome too. (for the record, eyes open while sleeping has a pretty awesome mom AND grandma, whom I will also miss). We all have adopted the silliest nickname for him, which is a mixture of good and bad and no one's called us on it yet. Hopefully, it won't be a problem. I'll miss him though! He is the sweetest, even if he does tend to escape every five minutes or less.
My job is very tiring but I enjoy it. So there's work for you.
Travel should be an interesting one, right?
I was supposed to go home this summer for two weeks, took the vacation days, but in the end couldn't actually afford the plane ticket. Not so for Christmas, so I have aplane ticket home for the holidays. Maybe I'll even get snow! My plan is to take home a bunch of posters and clothes and stuffed animals. I think I can swing that. I've even bought a few Christmas presents so far that I think are pretty cool, and I think my parents have gotten the best end of that. I've been trying to bring them more things home from my travels--easy for my mom because she loves lots of things, harder for my father. I've found him a few very fun things though. Mostly from Hokkaido.
So, on my two weeks off I went to Kyoto, Okayama, Anjo's Korona World of ULTIMATE FAIL, and Hokkaido.
In Kyoto, we went to the temple with the bloody floor boards on the ceiling from Fushimi Castle. You can actually see a bloody hand print on the ceiling, which is both creepy and awesome at once. Brigid said she could see the body they pointed out in the tour (it's a guided tour, all Japanese tho haha), but I couldn't and she couldn't show me it afterwards. XDD But it was very cool. We also went to Sanjuusan Gendou, which was ALWAYS cool, but when I read that Taira no Kiyomori had it built for the emperor Go-Shirakawa, it was made a MILLION TIMES cooler. For those of you lost, these are two of the most prominent figures in The Tale of the Heike ( Heike Monogatari ), which is a awesome story about the fall of the Taira Clan. Aka Japanese history and novel, yaddayadda.
The Anjo Korona world trip was awful and just not relaxing. I don't want to talk about it. XD
Okayama was lovely. The weather was good, all sunny and beautiful. I was only in town for the day, and just spent it like I still lived there. Took some pictures, got my hair done, ate waffles and talked with the Ogawas (they own the waffle shop), and then met up with Tibor and took a long walk. We took pictures of the Castle, walked around the outside of the garden, and ended our walking tour at Moby's. We talked about a lot of stuff. It was a really good chat, and I was so happy to see him. I plan on going back next month for the Bizen Yaki festival, possibly getting more Christmas presents because I AM A GOOD MEMBER OF MY FAMILY. I think I am going to try and get something small for everyone there. Maybe get some of the delicious fig jam I got two years ago, and possibly see former students. X3
Hokkaido. Ahh, the BEST part. Day one we went to the Shiroi Koibito factory and decorated giant cookies--fun but not too cool. It was the famous course so that was what I wanted to do, sadly it was booruns. We also enjoyed chocolate fondue, and I had a chocolate drink that was FABULOUS. Shiroi Koibito is a chocolate factory, and they are famous for white chocolate, though they do have real chocolate as well. :). The garden at the park is quite lovely as well, it has such a pretty and old fashioned feel to it, AND so many flowers. On the hour they play some music and bubbles come out from all over. So gorgeous!!! I will go back!
The next two days were Furano and AMAZING OMG. On the first day we went to the Cheese factory and made really delicious cheese, and bought loads of it. We had pizza at the factory, made with this delicious mozzarella that they don't sell but I wish to GOD that they did. I had two slices because it was honestly that delicious.
We then moved on to the Winery and Wine House, where we bought and tasted wine that was also DELICIOUS. Honestly there is nothing NOT delicious in Hokkaido (well, two things but we will get to that later), and I bought three bottles of wine. Could have bought more. I definitely contemplated that, at least. I have yet to drink any of the wine as I am currently waiting to hear about whose name I have for Christmas. The Winery also has a restaurant at it, and we ate the most delicious cheese fondue. GOD BLESS FURANO. We spent the night at a Japanese style inn, which was pretty nice. It was odd though, we were definitely the only people at the inn. We ended up eating at a conbini because the awesome resturant Barbarian had really expensive meal items, and we were all bleeding money at this point.
The next day we were in Furano again, ended up making butter at the cheese factory (super easy to do!), and at the grape juice factory and we went to Tomita farms to see the lavender. Most of the lavender was gone by the time we were there, but it was still lovely and we could buy all sorts of lavender scented things. It was loads of fun! At Tomita I tried Lavender Ice cream, and at the Grape Juice factory, I had Grape Juice Ice cream. SO YUMMY. Also at the grape juice, I bought grape jams. Mmmm, jam!!
We returned to Sapporo that night, and missed the Beer Gardens in Oodori Park, so we went to some izekaya (bar) for dinner, got kinda tipsy and drank and ate more then we really could afford. It was fun though~! We ended up singing the "WINNING" song back to our hostel, I bought some pain killers (ugh, back pain from crap beds lol), and we all went to bed.
In the morning we headed to Noboribetsu, which was THE BEST. I got to meet with a friend there who I hadn't seen in a few years. First though, we got to our SUPER POSH HOTEL and then took a walk to visit . . . HELL VALLEY. It was a really awesome walk through sulfur water geysers and rocks and trees and AWESOME. The Valley itself is gorgeous, all orangy rocks and streams of sulfuic water that reaches temperatures of "OH GOD IT BURNS". I think 50 degrees celsius was the lowest temperature coming out of the earth. There's also an active volcano, and we saw some steam coming from it, but I don't think it's going to blow anytime soon. This did not stop us from making jokes about that happening, though. (I admit, part of me wanted to see that) We also got to put our feet in a foot bath along the water, which was sadly too hot for my liking. It still felt so lovely, though!
We headed back into town, rested at the hotel, then went to meet my friend Nikki. We had dinner together and she told us about this fireworks thing going on, and we could NOT resist. (We had delicious ramen for dinner--I had Red Demon ramen, SO GOOD and SO SPICY). The fireworks were awesome, and told a story about the Oni (demons), that protect the Hell Valley and the Sulfur pits. Noboribetsu is known for it's sulfur bath onsen, which . . . really and truly stink, but feel utterly amazing. The baths are said to have some healing powers, and if my bath that night has anything to say about it? The Oni are doing their jobs.
The next day we headed back to Sapporo with Nikki--she was off to skate and we were off to the Beer Factory. At last, I would drink my Sapporo beer in Sapporo. Seriously, I was VERY excited. We went there and had Ghengis Khan--lamb--for lunch and it was delicious. It was at that glorious meal I had the Sapporo Classic--the Hokkaido gentei (Hokkaido Only) beer and it was pretty damned good. I am NOT a beer drinker, but I have slowly acquired the taste. This stuff? Pretty awesome for a Japanese beer. We then toured the museum and learned about the Sapporo Beer Factory's history (pretty fascinating stuff!), and then went to the gift shop. There is a bar at the end, and you can pay 600 yen for three glasses of beer! Sapporo Classic (delicious), Sapporo Black Label (drinkable, somewhat), and the original brew which tasted like "Why the HELL was this beer EVER popular, Oh God is this what work out socks taste like?"
Ahem.
I am still sad that I decided NOT to get a case of the Classic to take home, as my beer consumption rate would have kept that stuff around until . . . probably next year. XD Ahem. After the Beer Factory we went to Oodori Park one last time, and visited Sapporo Tower, which is like a mini, just as expensive but not as cool Tokyo Tower. We walked around, I shopped, and then we headed back to the airport. It was super sad to be leaving Hokkaido. The weather was perfect, the places we went were so amazing, there was nothing NOT to like about Hokkaido. Even the frustration I felt after the trip to Shiroi Koibito, and all the pain and suffering on hard beds covered with well used futons, I still loved every minute of it.
And then I came back to tragedy, but that's another post.
This has been a REALLY long update. I'm stopping now, but I will continue later, as I have some other things to talk about, like Serious Thoughts and Pottermore. Oh my goodness Pottermore. You hae NO IDEA, guys. NO. IDEA. If you are waiting for Pottermore--believe me, it is worth the wait.
ps--I am a Ravenclaw.
What's been happening? I'm usually out of the house 11-12 hours a day, depending on what's going on. Work out nights I don't get home until around 8:15, normal nights about 7:15 if I am booking it to get out of work on time. Not always an easy objective. But it is doable. It's not all bad, since I do enjoy my job, though I would enjoy it MUCH more if it was not summer and I was not covered in a fine panting of sweat all the time. I do like my coworkers, they are some lovely people. Even if that means staying out all night on Fridays more often then my introverted self really cares for. (For the record, that's been twice, and once was my fault. XD I have no one to blame but myself, and I enjoy going out and having fun with friends)
I have been thinking about the future, and the possibility of moving to work elsewhere in Japan. That doesn't actually mean a new job, I am able to transfer while working for my current company. (theoretically, there was the same possibility with the short lived job, but that was a hellish experience at best, so we shall ignore it). I am thinking very hard about making the move to Osaka. It's super tempting, as there is so much that Osaka has to offer, and if this is my last year in Japan? Then I think I'd want to be in a city that I love and have always thought of as home. It feels like the right choice, but it IS a scary one. If tue transfer came with going to teach the older kids--and I mean the ones who are actually learning via textbooks? I would take it in a heartbeat. All I know is that while I truly love and adore my kids, the part I like best about teaching is the actual treaching part, with textbooks and word games and stuff. The grass IS always greener, and I know I will have hair pulling days, but I miss the thrill of seeing kids understand the lesson of the day. I'm not as good as I'd like to be at teaching life skills. I'm not doing a bad job, but it's harder to come up with ideas sometimes. But you have that everywhere.
If I left for Osaka--a big if at the moment--I would miss all the kids I've been getting to know over the past few months. There is that to consider as well. =/. A few of my kids have told their mothers they don't want to go to school, and that's a little upsetting. But seriously, I think that might be because of siblings or cousins that are still on summer holiday who don't have to go to school and get to stay home with mom. And when you are 2 or not even 2 years old yet? That is cruel and unusual punishment, and I can't blame them. I'm sure that will change.
One of our transfer students left yesterday, and I'll miss him. He goes to the Tokyo branch of our school, and he is just a crazy and boisterous kid who was crazy and a handful, but also really sweet. He freaked us all out in his first week by sleeping with his eyes open. XD. Today, one of mine returns to Osaka, and I will miss him lots as well. He's a sweet ball of can't stay still, and his mom is pretty awesome too. (for the record, eyes open while sleeping has a pretty awesome mom AND grandma, whom I will also miss). We all have adopted the silliest nickname for him, which is a mixture of good and bad and no one's called us on it yet. Hopefully, it won't be a problem. I'll miss him though! He is the sweetest, even if he does tend to escape every five minutes or less.
My job is very tiring but I enjoy it. So there's work for you.
Travel should be an interesting one, right?
I was supposed to go home this summer for two weeks, took the vacation days, but in the end couldn't actually afford the plane ticket. Not so for Christmas, so I have aplane ticket home for the holidays. Maybe I'll even get snow! My plan is to take home a bunch of posters and clothes and stuffed animals. I think I can swing that. I've even bought a few Christmas presents so far that I think are pretty cool, and I think my parents have gotten the best end of that. I've been trying to bring them more things home from my travels--easy for my mom because she loves lots of things, harder for my father. I've found him a few very fun things though. Mostly from Hokkaido.
So, on my two weeks off I went to Kyoto, Okayama, Anjo's Korona World of ULTIMATE FAIL, and Hokkaido.
In Kyoto, we went to the temple with the bloody floor boards on the ceiling from Fushimi Castle. You can actually see a bloody hand print on the ceiling, which is both creepy and awesome at once. Brigid said she could see the body they pointed out in the tour (it's a guided tour, all Japanese tho haha), but I couldn't and she couldn't show me it afterwards. XDD But it was very cool. We also went to Sanjuusan Gendou, which was ALWAYS cool, but when I read that Taira no Kiyomori had it built for the emperor Go-Shirakawa, it was made a MILLION TIMES cooler. For those of you lost, these are two of the most prominent figures in The Tale of the Heike ( Heike Monogatari ), which is a awesome story about the fall of the Taira Clan. Aka Japanese history and novel, yaddayadda.
The Anjo Korona world trip was awful and just not relaxing. I don't want to talk about it. XD
Okayama was lovely. The weather was good, all sunny and beautiful. I was only in town for the day, and just spent it like I still lived there. Took some pictures, got my hair done, ate waffles and talked with the Ogawas (they own the waffle shop), and then met up with Tibor and took a long walk. We took pictures of the Castle, walked around the outside of the garden, and ended our walking tour at Moby's. We talked about a lot of stuff. It was a really good chat, and I was so happy to see him. I plan on going back next month for the Bizen Yaki festival, possibly getting more Christmas presents because I AM A GOOD MEMBER OF MY FAMILY. I think I am going to try and get something small for everyone there. Maybe get some of the delicious fig jam I got two years ago, and possibly see former students. X3
Hokkaido. Ahh, the BEST part. Day one we went to the Shiroi Koibito factory and decorated giant cookies--fun but not too cool. It was the famous course so that was what I wanted to do, sadly it was booruns. We also enjoyed chocolate fondue, and I had a chocolate drink that was FABULOUS. Shiroi Koibito is a chocolate factory, and they are famous for white chocolate, though they do have real chocolate as well. :). The garden at the park is quite lovely as well, it has such a pretty and old fashioned feel to it, AND so many flowers. On the hour they play some music and bubbles come out from all over. So gorgeous!!! I will go back!
The next two days were Furano and AMAZING OMG. On the first day we went to the Cheese factory and made really delicious cheese, and bought loads of it. We had pizza at the factory, made with this delicious mozzarella that they don't sell but I wish to GOD that they did. I had two slices because it was honestly that delicious.
We then moved on to the Winery and Wine House, where we bought and tasted wine that was also DELICIOUS. Honestly there is nothing NOT delicious in Hokkaido (well, two things but we will get to that later), and I bought three bottles of wine. Could have bought more. I definitely contemplated that, at least. I have yet to drink any of the wine as I am currently waiting to hear about whose name I have for Christmas. The Winery also has a restaurant at it, and we ate the most delicious cheese fondue. GOD BLESS FURANO. We spent the night at a Japanese style inn, which was pretty nice. It was odd though, we were definitely the only people at the inn. We ended up eating at a conbini because the awesome resturant Barbarian had really expensive meal items, and we were all bleeding money at this point.
The next day we were in Furano again, ended up making butter at the cheese factory (super easy to do!), and at the grape juice factory and we went to Tomita farms to see the lavender. Most of the lavender was gone by the time we were there, but it was still lovely and we could buy all sorts of lavender scented things. It was loads of fun! At Tomita I tried Lavender Ice cream, and at the Grape Juice factory, I had Grape Juice Ice cream. SO YUMMY. Also at the grape juice, I bought grape jams. Mmmm, jam!!
We returned to Sapporo that night, and missed the Beer Gardens in Oodori Park, so we went to some izekaya (bar) for dinner, got kinda tipsy and drank and ate more then we really could afford. It was fun though~! We ended up singing the "WINNING" song back to our hostel, I bought some pain killers (ugh, back pain from crap beds lol), and we all went to bed.
In the morning we headed to Noboribetsu, which was THE BEST. I got to meet with a friend there who I hadn't seen in a few years. First though, we got to our SUPER POSH HOTEL and then took a walk to visit . . . HELL VALLEY. It was a really awesome walk through sulfur water geysers and rocks and trees and AWESOME. The Valley itself is gorgeous, all orangy rocks and streams of sulfuic water that reaches temperatures of "OH GOD IT BURNS". I think 50 degrees celsius was the lowest temperature coming out of the earth. There's also an active volcano, and we saw some steam coming from it, but I don't think it's going to blow anytime soon. This did not stop us from making jokes about that happening, though. (I admit, part of me wanted to see that) We also got to put our feet in a foot bath along the water, which was sadly too hot for my liking. It still felt so lovely, though!
We headed back into town, rested at the hotel, then went to meet my friend Nikki. We had dinner together and she told us about this fireworks thing going on, and we could NOT resist. (We had delicious ramen for dinner--I had Red Demon ramen, SO GOOD and SO SPICY). The fireworks were awesome, and told a story about the Oni (demons), that protect the Hell Valley and the Sulfur pits. Noboribetsu is known for it's sulfur bath onsen, which . . . really and truly stink, but feel utterly amazing. The baths are said to have some healing powers, and if my bath that night has anything to say about it? The Oni are doing their jobs.
The next day we headed back to Sapporo with Nikki--she was off to skate and we were off to the Beer Factory. At last, I would drink my Sapporo beer in Sapporo. Seriously, I was VERY excited. We went there and had Ghengis Khan--lamb--for lunch and it was delicious. It was at that glorious meal I had the Sapporo Classic--the Hokkaido gentei (Hokkaido Only) beer and it was pretty damned good. I am NOT a beer drinker, but I have slowly acquired the taste. This stuff? Pretty awesome for a Japanese beer. We then toured the museum and learned about the Sapporo Beer Factory's history (pretty fascinating stuff!), and then went to the gift shop. There is a bar at the end, and you can pay 600 yen for three glasses of beer! Sapporo Classic (delicious), Sapporo Black Label (drinkable, somewhat), and the original brew which tasted like "Why the HELL was this beer EVER popular, Oh God is this what work out socks taste like?"
Ahem.
I am still sad that I decided NOT to get a case of the Classic to take home, as my beer consumption rate would have kept that stuff around until . . . probably next year. XD Ahem. After the Beer Factory we went to Oodori Park one last time, and visited Sapporo Tower, which is like a mini, just as expensive but not as cool Tokyo Tower. We walked around, I shopped, and then we headed back to the airport. It was super sad to be leaving Hokkaido. The weather was perfect, the places we went were so amazing, there was nothing NOT to like about Hokkaido. Even the frustration I felt after the trip to Shiroi Koibito, and all the pain and suffering on hard beds covered with well used futons, I still loved every minute of it.
And then I came back to tragedy, but that's another post.
This has been a REALLY long update. I'm stopping now, but I will continue later, as I have some other things to talk about, like Serious Thoughts and Pottermore. Oh my goodness Pottermore. You hae NO IDEA, guys. NO. IDEA. If you are waiting for Pottermore--believe me, it is worth the wait.
ps--I am a Ravenclaw.