SMAP! SMAP!! SMAAAAPPPP!!!! And the Ramen Museum!

Gees, today, there's a lot to tell.

First let me start off with a student story.
I was teaching a lesson: Preferences (For Your Home). We were talking about what we would like to have in our house, and what we wouldn't like to have. So generally we're talking about furniture, or cool things like a pool, or home entertainment system, or new kitchen...blah blah blah. First we talked about normal things, like "I would like to have a massage chair, because I am very tired...it is relaxing," in extremely broken English. Then I asked the students what they wouldn't like in their house. Here's the gold...and sorry for not really building up to it.
One of the students (highschooler) said: "I don't want beer in my house. Because I can't put my juice anywhere." Was hilarious!

Alright, work was great. Because I had two no-shows (meaning I only had one scheduled student, and if they don't show, I can sit on my butt and do nothing). I think the reason was because we had a HUGE thunderstorm in Tsunashima. The thunder was so loud that it scared some of the students. I've only once ever heard thunder louder than today, back in Pakington St. But this was just crazy. Unbelievable. But when I finished work, it had cleared up! Woohoo! Bright and clear skies, great how something so crazy and terrifying can clear up all the bad air...

Anyway, straight after work I went to meet Alli at the ramen museum! In Shin-Yokohama. I've never been to Shin-Yokohama, but heaps of our students have been there or were students there before. It's actually a mega large station. I met Alli there with little trouble, but we had some trouble finding the ramen museum. Eventually we found it, and it was pretty cool! I'll let the pictures do the talking...but basically there were two floors of ramen restaurants. We decided to just go and eat at one that had a fairly big queue; we figured it must be good. I don't really recall what type of ramen we ate, except that the soup tasted of pork, coz they soaked the soup in pork bones...mmm. It was MEGA salty! The ramen museum was cool because of the funky, old age decor. We spent a fair amount of time in there; there's a spot where you can buy your own "cup noodle" cup, design it, get ramen put in with 4 different condiments, and then package it in some plastic cushion. You can't really imagine it unless you see it, but its pretty funky. I saw some people put their cup in the plastic (transparent) bag, and then stick a pump into it and blow up the plastic bag until it filled out and held the cup in place. Not something I wanna bring back to Australia, but nonetheless, cool.



After the mega mega salty ramen, we looked for some place to have dessert. We walked around for quite a while (in and out of the Shin-Yokohama station) before we decided on Doutour, which is a standard coffee place all over Japan.
Anyway, we sat and chatted for a while, until the shop was about to close. By that time though, we saw all these people crossing one of the main junctions and pouring into the train station. I remembered that one of my students had told me about a SMAP concert, in Shin-Yokohama. So it clicked. It was as if all the ladies in Yokohama city had decided to come out for the night and pay homage to a dying boy band in Japan, SMAP! For more info on SMAP, click here, not here.
Anyway it was crazy. Once again, I will let VIDEO do the talking. This is a pretty cool video IMO, it lets you see all the millions of people in Japan crammed into one city, hahahaha!! HERE!
And the photo at the station really doesn't do justice to actually being there and looking down at the moving masses!

Oh, and another funny clip but not so funny because I missed iT! The cramming of the trains. At the end of the day when Alli and I were trying to get back, we couldn't get on the first train that arrived because too many people just tried to squish in/on. But the 2nd train, we sure were squished in. The back of my hand was pressed against some girl's butt. Nothing exhiliarating mind you, but I can't complain, it wasn't a guy at least.

Playing the Kurzweil...and seeing Alli!

Today, or Friday (yesterday), I met up with Allison. It was great seeing her after so long, I couldn't even recognise her voice on the phone the first time.
We met up around Sakuragicho (pretty near Yokohama inner city) and walked around the Minatomirai area to Landmark Tower. Had a drink at Starbucks and caught up. All the stuff that we've been doing in Japan and whatnot. We then trekked (literally trekked, it was HOT!) to Chinatown, where we went into some kind of museum, got dressed up in some traditional Chinese dress, met one of the staff I work with (mega coincidence), watched some small Chinese opera with only two actors (was pretty cool), then had dinner at the ONE place I've had dinner at in Chinatown..hahaha. It was the only guaranteed cheap kind of place, I think. Except when I went to pay for the bill, I saw the bill the previous guy was paying for. 56,000Y!!!! That's about $660!! We didn't spend anywhere near that...












Then! I went to the church in Ishikawacho that Dennis directed me to when I first got here. I met this guy Gary a long time ago, and for a while he'd been trying to get a band together and rehearse together. Tonight was the first night! Was pretty exciting, but when I saw the skill and calibre of these guys, I got scared. I'm OK at the keys yeah, but the electric guitarist and bass player were crazy! And what's more, the guitarist, who looks like 28, is 21! And is an absolute freak. What's more, they both jumped on each other's instruments and played insane. I felt pretty intimidated. I always seem to be playing with people that are better than me. It's a blessing I guess. Anyway, we were practicing simple Hillsong songs. Gary's the leader of the band; he's got a vision to save these guys and to bring this band on the road. I'm all for it; if it does happen, I may not be coming home in March. We'll see where this goes, but I'm excited. And I got to play the Kurzweil!!! Sick instrument.

Anyway, was an awesome day. Awesome day. AND! I'm going to Malaysia soon!!!!!!

Try THIS!!

This is a pretty cool funny email Darrell sent me. Props to you man!

So anyway, I did it and here's the result:

I sang to a permanent marker because I'm sexy and I do what I want.

Heheh, now you try it! And put it in the ChatBoard!

EMAIL:To make your sentence pick the month you were born, the day you were born and the colour of the shirt you’re wearing right now from the lists below.

Pick the month you were born:
January------I kicked
February-----I loved
March--------I smoked
April--------I dry humped
May----------I choked on
June---------I murdered
July---------I did the Macarena with
August-------I had lunch with
September----I danced with
October------I sang to
November-----I yelled at
December-----I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1------------a birdbath
2------------a monster
3------------a phone
4------------a fork
5------------a Mexican
6------------a gangster
7------------my cell phone
8------------my dog
9------------my best friends' boyfriend
10-----------my neighbor
11-----------my science teacher
12-----------a banana
13-----------a fireman
14-----------a stuffed animal
15-----------a goat
16-----------a pickle
17-----------your mum
18-----------a spoon
19-----------myself
20-----------a baseball bat
21-----------a ninja
22-----------Chuck Norris
23-----------a noodle
24-----------a squirrel
25-----------a football player
26-----------my sister
27-----------my brother
28-----------an ipod
29-----------a permanent marker
30-----------a llama
31-----------a homeless guy

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White--------because I'm cool like that.
Black--------because that's how I roll.
Pink---------because I'm NOT a homosexual.
Red----------because the voices told me to.
Blue---------because I'm sexy and I do what I want.
Green--------because I hate myself.
Purple-------because I'm cool.
Gray---------because I was drunk
Yellow-------because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars.
Orange-------because I hate my family.
Brown--------because I was high.
Other--------because I'm a ninja.
None---------because I cant control myself

Go on, tell me what you GOT!

Day by day. Today was a nice day!

I just took some photos today on the way home. I thought the one with the bridge was quite nice. It would've been nicer if there was no bridge I guess...
The last picture is of something I put up in my room, to spruce up the decorations. Janice, is this up to standard?? I couldn't find that picture of the previous arrangement, sorry!

:D It's a good day today. I just feel good.

Praise God!

Well, I'm quite sure it was all God that I managed to get 5 days swapped in the span of two weeks. I've officially now gotten all the days off I need to get out of this place for 10 days and head to Malaysia to see my parents. For those that did pray for me, thank you so much. I'm really looking forward to going on yet another holiday :) (: this time to see my uncle and cousin who I haven't seen in a really long time, and also my parents...also who I haven't seen in a really long time!

Now I just need to get the paperwork through, buy the ticket tomorrow...and I'm all set!
Hurrah!

Oh, here's a picture of today. The weather calmed down today, wasn't as hot as its been the past few days, and we had a nice dusk sky. The picture is unedited, it is as orange as it looks!

Oh, I also ate some Pringles the other day, and oddly enough, they have writing on them. If anyone can read Japanese, tell me what it means! Maybe its some health warning; I wouldn't be that surprised.... :)

Another good night...kind of...

Well it's Monday, but let's consider it as Sunday night.
Firstly, I had a pretty amusing day. A lot of funny things that students said but the most memorable one was I was teaching Offering Assistance. The funniest situation was partly due to the student's intonation and also their lack of fluency.

The first student asked the other student "Could you help me make dinner?"
The second student immediately just came out with "No." It was said in such a matter-of-fact way that I just started laughing. It was a flat refusal. He went on to say "I...can't...know how..to....dinner." So i taught them its better to say "I'm sorry, I don't know how to make dinner." Hilarious.

The next part was even funnier.
The second student said: Can I help you with anything?
The first student said: Could you take out the trash?
The second student said: No.
Hahahahahaha, thinking about it now, it was frickin' hilarious....so much so that we all laughed and disturbed the class in the next room/cubicle.
The second student realised his mistake and said: Oh oh oh....No..No problem!
Classic stuff. It's moments like these that make the day easier to get through.

Anyway, Sunday night was a work party night, where some newish teachers to the area came. So it was also a welcome party for Alan, who is the new boss at Tsunashima, and also over the neighbouring branch, Kikuna. So we had staff and teachers from Tsunashima as well as Kikuna. Kikuna have recently gotten two new permanent staff: Sword and Casey. Good guys.
We went to an izakaya in Tsunashima, one I've been to before. Quite nice, unfortunately I didn't bring my camera. Anyway, there was a TONNN of drinking. Nomihodai - all you can drink. I took a dodgy photo with my camera of all the beer bottles that were drunk. I would say roughly 30-40 beer bottles. There were a few more drunk after I took the photo. People got smashed, a lot of yelling...I kinda lost my voice. Was a good night though.


Anyway, I watched Lost in Translation just the other day. It is so weird seeing things in a movie happen that are almost exactly like what we see and hear everyday. The bad pronounced English, the mistranslation, the views of the city, the karaoke....everything. I suppose it made the movie more interesting because really, nothing much happens in that movie.

Alright, I'm out. Gotta handle the little ones in about 8hrs.