I cannot believe it has been more than 2 weeks since my last entry! I really let you down this time. I just got back from work and I still have enough energy to write an entry for once. It can get very hectic at school and it can easily become draining. Monday and Tuesday I'm off at 5:30pm, but from Wednesday to Friday I have nearly 12 hour days. I could leave in the middle of the day to go home and rest for an hour or 2, but I always find myself staying at school preparing for my classes or riding my bike through the streets of Fukushima. So I guess, it's my fault when I find myself exhausted at the end of the week. But also I never thought that teaching would demand so much energy. Here I have a picture of my kindergarten class. This was taken at a field trip spent in this really beautiful park with the biggest kiddy slide I had ever seen! The grown-ups in the picture are the kids' parents, who are all very nice people, although some can be a little crazy at times. I heard from other staff that Japanese parents can become very jealous of other parents's children for no clear or explainable reason, and sometimes act out against the teachers and the school. Nothing has happened to me as of yet, but I have heard of a few stories about psycho parents who go from worshipping to ripping into the school for the silliest reasons.

Slowly I am making Fukushima and my new apartment my new home. Last week-end I went to shop for some home-deco and some much needed furniture, like a table for my living room. My apartment is slowly coming together, which means it is almost time for a rockin' house warming party. My friend Diane is willing to trade her gorgeous retro pastel green couch for my atrocious 70s caca brown love seat. This thing is an eye-sore, and I just don't know how she sees anything appealing in this piece of furniture. To each its own I guess! Maybe I shouldn't complain so much because the couch was given to me for free, but I promise that once my apartment is all set, I will take some pictures for all of you curious people. I guess I just need to make it more my own, more like Ivanie. I truly believe that I need to do this little effort and spend this little cash to make me feel more at ease in my new environment. That's just how I see it.

Nothing really important has happened here since my mega birthday week. I haven't been travelling as much and I have been trying to get used to my surroundings by staying in Fukushima. I really like it around here and I am becoming more and more comfortable living here. I am making great friends and living alone in my large apartment has not been as big of a challenge as I thought it would be. At the beginning, I found it hard to come to an empty house with no one to talk to. I spent my first 2 weeks here without phone and the Internet, and I lived through some tough times. Furtunately, with time I have made some friends with people who live really close, like my neighbour Jason who lives right upstairs and my British friend Diane who literally lives a 45 second bike ride down my street. Diane has become a really close friend of mine. She is 35 years old and she is another English teacher at James school. She is this wonderful person who has always great advice to give me with a hell of experience to back it up. Every week-end we try to make dinner for each other and finish off with one, two and sometimes even 3 bottles of wine (and a movie). Here is a close-up picture of Diane, myself and of Miho and Naomi in the background when we went to this cute little Japanese style restaurant for some beef ragu, their speciality. It was delicious and this is what the meal looked like. All of this for about $10 and look how beautiful it looks!

Like I said, I haven't been travelling as much as my first days in the country, but i have been spending a lot of time with some of my new friends. I have as many foreign friends as Japanese friends and we go out very often... too often. I think it would be a lot harder to experience another culture if you didn't have anyone with you to share it with, or anyone with you that could help you translate what the hell these people are saying!!! More and more everyday, I become more and more frustrated by the fact that I dont speak the language. I feel totally illiterate at times: I cant read, I cant speak, I cant write and I cant understand what is being said to me. Sure I know a few words, but not enough to get me around the simplest things like ordering food or a drink. I really would like to take up some lessons but all the free ones are during the week-days when Im at work, so I will have to find a method of my own. There are a few internet sites that offer free Japanese lessons, but eventually I should really start some real classes.

Another thing I should really look into is finding a communal swimming pool and start swimming again. Since ive been here, I don't understand why, but I have been eating constantly. I am always so hungry. For the last 2 weeks ive been trying to cut back and Ive been eating really healthy foods (like tofu and vegetables), but the real problem is that I really can't stop eating. So I guess I have been gaining weight since I have been here. People are surprised when I tell them this, because food in japan is very healthy and I also bike long distances everyday. I dont remember being this hungry when I was home and I dont think I was doing as much exercise, but Japan is making me gain a little weight. My friends tell me that Ill eventually get sick of Japanese food and stop eating so much of it. But when is that going to be?

Anyway, 2 week-ends ago I had a really charged, long and fun day. First I had to go to my boss's BBQ where I got to meet a lot of other school owners in the prefecture and some more parents of the children I teach. It was an affair that started in the morning up until 5pm, and I was exhausted when we had to go home. On that same day, Fukushima had this festival that was coming to an end that evening and since it only comes once a year, me and Jason decided to go check it out just for an hour or two. Here are a few pictures of this festival.

The festival consisted of the participation of the different regions of Fukushima. They were all individually identified by their motocars that had paper lamps with their region's names in Japanese. At first, one after another they shout and cheered for their own region, then threw sweets to the crowd for good luck and finally one after another they left screaming and cheering and seperately paraded around town before going back home. So that night we kept on bumping into random motorcars as they were going back. Here are more shots of the festival.

After the festival I found myself with so much energy, that I just couldnt imagine myself going back home. So I went to check out my friends play some soccer and pressured them in going for some beers after the game. We went to this little place called the Chipwagon, where they serve pityful Mexican plates for very expensive. Anyway, the fun part about this place is that almost everynight they have this retro band dressed in 60s fashion with the Elvis hair and shiny suits. So my friend Leslie and I had the guts after a few beers and a shot of tequila to dance the twist in front of all the shy Japanese people in the restaurant. They were cheering us on and whisling at us as we twisted down to the floor. It was great fun and we became known as the crazy geijins, the stars of the evening.

After the Chipwagon for some beer and twisting fun, we went to this ramen shop. Ramen shops are like the Japanese equivalent to Denny's or a poutine restaurant... great for after party food and snacks. Ramen is a large bowl of soup with thin noodles, 2 slices of pork, a whole egg, some tofu and boiled bamboo swimming in a pork broth. I had some Gioza which are basically fried dumplings stuffed with pork and vegetables with a nice sweet sauce. We lost most of the group after the ramen, but although it was already 1am, my friend Leslie and I couldn't just end the night there. So we went Kareoke for 2 hours, singing songs that we usually would not be singing in a large group, like sappy love songs (i.e. Richard Marx, Meatloaf and the like). After singing our heart out to tunes like Bon Jovi's "Always," Leslie came over for some tea and left my apartment at 5am when the sun was coming out. This was one of the longest days of my life.

Next week-end I am going camping for the very first time. Yes I know what most of you might be thinking, and that's fine. I never really wanted to go camping before. I guess I needed to come all the way to Japan to have the guts to finally try it out even though Japan has the biggest spiders I have ever seen and the most vicious mosquitos. So I am just going to hope for the best, wear some extra layers, maybe a mask, some bug repellent that kills, not spray myself with parfum for a week and bring lots and lots of alcohol to help me forget about all the buggy creatures.

Well I'll make sure to update sooner and more often from now on. It is almost 11pm and I should go to bed for another busy school day.

luv u all,
e.