on the train platform
i love balloons
elmo was a pirate
we went on the merry-go-round too
and i rode the zebra
with blue stripes
and ayako rode the purple elephant
that's the elmo i won
the parade we saw
pictures for paul
in the park
and
my new haircut
that david gave me
on the way to tarumi i saw an orange tree
and a shrine
Suma Park
so that you don't fall
it reminded me of a tropical place
raspberries
the ocean and the trian
the animals in the park
that cat looks like a tiger
Kobe Matsuri
a marching band
the musicians
the conductor
the samba dancers
Things I've done since David left:
Matsuri means festival
The weekend after david left i went to the Kobe Matsuri in Sannomiya. There was a parade of samba dancers. There were women with big feathers and sequined costumes. There were little girls dressed up and dancing. There were floats of people playing music. It reminded me of Carribbana. I watched a high school marching band and girls with batons. There were lots of people. I ate big peices of sweet potato fried and tossed in sugar. They were delicious. I ate some tandoori chicken from an Indian restaurants stand. It wasn't as good as the butter chicken I had last time but it was still pretty good. I walked to China Town and ate some pinapple on a stick. I took the train to Kobe station and found the mall that looks like a waterfall where ayako and some other people from our Fla class were dancing on stage. I missed them. Or really I made it halfway through and recognized our song but couldn't find ayako in the rows of women. I saw her grandmother and neices and nephew and we found ayako and waited for her to change. I walked around with her and her brother and wife and neices and nephew for a while in the mall. We went to a sports store and I bought them lollipops. I carried the little girl on my shoulders and ran after them. We had lots of fun. And then it was time to go home.
The next day on maybe the next weekend which I am not sure, I went with Chika to the beach in Okubo. We took the Taku Bus. Taku means octopus. (When i was playing a word association game with some of my older kids and i said bus they said octopus). It was raining. The beach smalled a lot like seaweed. We walked back to her house and caught the bus back to the station. We walked to a second hand store down the road from my house and got ice cream on the way back. They have baskin robbins here. I had one with three kinds of chocolate and chocolate brownies. It was scrumptious.
On a saturday night I went out to dinner with Chika and Ayako and Mamiko and Aya (Akiko couldn't come cause she was sick). We went to the yakitori (or maybe it's yakiniku cause i always get them confused but anyways it was the one with the chicken on the sticks) restauraunt that is on the corner that i always see and has red lanters strung across it's doorway. We sat on pillows Japanese style. (Like when me and david went to the yakiniku restaurant with the big bear-racoon out front and ate raw beef and tongue with mamiko and ayako). Afterwards we went to the red spanky and stayed and talked for a while.
One day after fla ayako invited me to have dinner with her and her friend. We went to a buffet restaurant in the big green building like the emerald city. It was sooooo yummy. We had pizza and pasta and dumplings and salad and ramen and lots of delicious things. And they had lots of little desserts. There were little cakes and ice cream and miniture dishes of creme brule and yogurt with berries and pudding and such. It was scrumptious. Afterwards, we walked around and went in stores and i went with them to see their old english teacher at the new store she opened. we bought her flowers on the way. we had coffee with her at a little parisian cafe that was quite wonderful. i had chai tea.
A saturday after that me and ayako and her friend had dinner at the italian restaurant in sannomiya that i went to with maggie the first night i was in okubo. Our pasta was clumpy but the garlic bread was good. We sang karaoke for an hour. We went to a foreigner bar. We went to a turkish bar and an australian man asked to smell my stockings. I made my last train home but ayako didn't so they had to take a cab.
The next day it was sunny.
I took the train to Suma and went to the park.The park was big and it went up the mountain. There is a cable car but I didn't take it... I'm going to go next time. The park is really pretty and green. There was a big stone shape and i crawled on top and drew a picture. An old man came up to me and asked me for a date so i had to flee. He didn't speak English but wouldn't stop talking. I walked up to another spot and and sat on a slide until a little girl wanted to go down and i had to move on. I sat on a bench and read a book. I sat on a ledge and drew a picture. I walked down a path where i saw raspberries growing. I saw lots of dogs. I saw people having a picnic. I stood on a bench and looked at the ocean. It's a beautiful park. I walked to Tarumi. I watched the people in their cars. I stopped at a restaurant and had hamburg which is a hamburger without the bun and it was delicious. It was a long walk. I found Tarumi station and sat on a bench. An old man came up to me and asked me to dinner in broken english. I told him I was meeting a friend. He said have a good day and walked away. I went home.
I had a weekend in the middle of the week. I went to osaka to find american appareal. I found it. I had ramen in namba. It wasn't as good as in tokyo or okayama but it was still pretty spiffy and it was at an outside restaurant with little tables to sit at where you buy a ticket at the machine and wait for the one thing they serve. I saw another ramen restaurant i want to try next time.
On my real weekend i had to go to training in okayama.
The shinkansen only took half an hour. It was strange to be back where I first came. It seemed like so long ago that I was there but it was so familiar it seemed like such a short time since i was there at the same time. I looked at the green phone where I called mom the first night I was in Japan. I looked at the pastries at the shop where we ate almost everyday during training. But the funny alien man was gone and i was sad because i was looking forward to seeing him. We had to take big buses up into the mountains for training. It was at a big company training facility. The area was beautiful and green. It rained a lot. Training was okay. There were some poeple I knew. My model lesson went ok. I spent a lot of time on it cause it was for the JA (Junior High) class and I never teach that one right. They fed us. I ate at the special table cause I'm allergic to peanuts and we got better food. I met a girl that went to McMaster too that Sonia knows. Social gatherings always moke me a little depressed in the aftermath. We went home a monday afternoon and i was home by 6pm.
The next weekend i went to Universal Studios with Ayako and Chika and her friend Erin.
After fla we went to a mall and i bought some shorts and we had ramen... i had a different type that i dont remember the name of with vegetables and it was pretty good and ayako bought us these fish shaped pastries like waffles with creme in them that were quite yummy. Then we drove to Universal Studios which is in Osaka. It was a good day and really hot. We had to stand in line for a long time. I went on a rollar coaster. It was the first one. Do you remember the time when i got in a rollar coaster (the one that goes through the mountain) at wonderland and jumped out at the last second? I got in and we sat in a row and they put the big bar things over us and we had to wait a long time for it to start and i had a small anxiety attack becasue i wanted to jump out but i couldn't because of the bar thing. But i took deep breaths and told myself it was okay and to just be calm and it was okay. Some boys in line were looking at me and laughing inside i think becasue i was making the most terrified faces. The rollar coaster was scary and i closed my eyes a lot and when we went down it felt like i was falling without anything around me or maybe like flying but i can see how it could be fun in a way. After that we got raspberry beer at the pink panther store and strawberry ice cream bubble tea floats. Oh! and i almost forgot! I won Ayako a elmo toy at ring toss! It was very exciting, I was very proud of myself. Ayako loves elmo. We watched a parade with a sesame street float and elmo and cookie monter and big bird and the yellow one i forget the name of and the count were all there. And the float looked like it was made out of lego. It was pretty cool. There was a hello kitty float too but it wasn't as cool. After that we had to wait in another long line for the spiderman ride. In line me and Erin talked about all the cartoons we watched when we were kids cause she's from Canada too... Hamilton in fact. I guess the spiderman ride is really cool cause you ride in a car and wear these glasses and then you can see all these hollograms and the car spins and stuff and takes you through this story where the bad guys come and get you and spiderman gets you and it feels hot when there's fire and stuff but I got scared of all the bad guys cause it looked too real so i closed my eyes for most of the time and tried to stay calm. Maybe I don't have a very good grip on reality. Or maybe I'm crazy. Me and Ayako said goodbye to Chika and Erin and got some Mos burger and drove home.
Last weekend I went to Motomachi in Sannomiya.
I went to a little second hand shop and the girl was really nice and told me she was a university student. I was going to ask her to be my friend but then I got shy. Making friends it no easier than asking a boy on a date. I went to another little second hand store down the street and it started to rain. They gave me an umbrella. They were really nice. It was clear plastic. I left it somewhere. I hope someone else finds it when it's raining. I went to the mall that looks like a waterfall where ayako danced and found the store where everything is 390 Yen. I walked back to China Town and had a varitable feast. I got crouquets (fried crispy things) at a store where they sell kobe beef. One was filled with mushy yummy vegetable stuff and one was filled with shrimp. I bought a round dunut that an old lady was selling at the station and i think she made them herself and it was really good too. I bought a little wrap that was filled with crispy sprouts and meat and it was pretty good. I sat in the rain on a little stone stump and ate gyoza on a stick and mango bubble tea which were very good and even better because I love the rain on a hot day. And i had meat on a stick and a long curl of fried potato on a stick from a little vender at the end which was very delicious. I love China Town to the max. We are definatly going to the big China Town near Tokyo when mom comes. I was thinking that I wanted to stay for the big Chinese New Year celebration in China Town but then i thought that I could just go to China for New Years cause that would be the ultimate. And then I went home.
Oh! and they asked me if I wanted to renew my contract for another 6 months. So until June 2009.
I said no.
The weekend after david left i went to the Kobe Matsuri in Sannomiya. There was a parade of samba dancers. There were women with big feathers and sequined costumes. There were little girls dressed up and dancing. There were floats of people playing music. It reminded me of Carribbana. I watched a high school marching band and girls with batons. There were lots of people. I ate big peices of sweet potato fried and tossed in sugar. They were delicious. I ate some tandoori chicken from an Indian restaurants stand. It wasn't as good as the butter chicken I had last time but it was still pretty good. I walked to China Town and ate some pinapple on a stick. I took the train to Kobe station and found the mall that looks like a waterfall where ayako and some other people from our Fla class were dancing on stage. I missed them. Or really I made it halfway through and recognized our song but couldn't find ayako in the rows of women. I saw her grandmother and neices and nephew and we found ayako and waited for her to change. I walked around with her and her brother and wife and neices and nephew for a while in the mall. We went to a sports store and I bought them lollipops. I carried the little girl on my shoulders and ran after them. We had lots of fun. And then it was time to go home.
The next day on maybe the next weekend which I am not sure, I went with Chika to the beach in Okubo. We took the Taku Bus. Taku means octopus. (When i was playing a word association game with some of my older kids and i said bus they said octopus). It was raining. The beach smalled a lot like seaweed. We walked back to her house and caught the bus back to the station. We walked to a second hand store down the road from my house and got ice cream on the way back. They have baskin robbins here. I had one with three kinds of chocolate and chocolate brownies. It was scrumptious.
On a saturday night I went out to dinner with Chika and Ayako and Mamiko and Aya (Akiko couldn't come cause she was sick). We went to the yakitori (or maybe it's yakiniku cause i always get them confused but anyways it was the one with the chicken on the sticks) restauraunt that is on the corner that i always see and has red lanters strung across it's doorway. We sat on pillows Japanese style. (Like when me and david went to the yakiniku restaurant with the big bear-racoon out front and ate raw beef and tongue with mamiko and ayako). Afterwards we went to the red spanky and stayed and talked for a while.
One day after fla ayako invited me to have dinner with her and her friend. We went to a buffet restaurant in the big green building like the emerald city. It was sooooo yummy. We had pizza and pasta and dumplings and salad and ramen and lots of delicious things. And they had lots of little desserts. There were little cakes and ice cream and miniture dishes of creme brule and yogurt with berries and pudding and such. It was scrumptious. Afterwards, we walked around and went in stores and i went with them to see their old english teacher at the new store she opened. we bought her flowers on the way. we had coffee with her at a little parisian cafe that was quite wonderful. i had chai tea.
A saturday after that me and ayako and her friend had dinner at the italian restaurant in sannomiya that i went to with maggie the first night i was in okubo. Our pasta was clumpy but the garlic bread was good. We sang karaoke for an hour. We went to a foreigner bar. We went to a turkish bar and an australian man asked to smell my stockings. I made my last train home but ayako didn't so they had to take a cab.
The next day it was sunny.
I took the train to Suma and went to the park.The park was big and it went up the mountain. There is a cable car but I didn't take it... I'm going to go next time. The park is really pretty and green. There was a big stone shape and i crawled on top and drew a picture. An old man came up to me and asked me for a date so i had to flee. He didn't speak English but wouldn't stop talking. I walked up to another spot and and sat on a slide until a little girl wanted to go down and i had to move on. I sat on a bench and read a book. I sat on a ledge and drew a picture. I walked down a path where i saw raspberries growing. I saw lots of dogs. I saw people having a picnic. I stood on a bench and looked at the ocean. It's a beautiful park. I walked to Tarumi. I watched the people in their cars. I stopped at a restaurant and had hamburg which is a hamburger without the bun and it was delicious. It was a long walk. I found Tarumi station and sat on a bench. An old man came up to me and asked me to dinner in broken english. I told him I was meeting a friend. He said have a good day and walked away. I went home.
I had a weekend in the middle of the week. I went to osaka to find american appareal. I found it. I had ramen in namba. It wasn't as good as in tokyo or okayama but it was still pretty spiffy and it was at an outside restaurant with little tables to sit at where you buy a ticket at the machine and wait for the one thing they serve. I saw another ramen restaurant i want to try next time.
On my real weekend i had to go to training in okayama.
The shinkansen only took half an hour. It was strange to be back where I first came. It seemed like so long ago that I was there but it was so familiar it seemed like such a short time since i was there at the same time. I looked at the green phone where I called mom the first night I was in Japan. I looked at the pastries at the shop where we ate almost everyday during training. But the funny alien man was gone and i was sad because i was looking forward to seeing him. We had to take big buses up into the mountains for training. It was at a big company training facility. The area was beautiful and green. It rained a lot. Training was okay. There were some poeple I knew. My model lesson went ok. I spent a lot of time on it cause it was for the JA (Junior High) class and I never teach that one right. They fed us. I ate at the special table cause I'm allergic to peanuts and we got better food. I met a girl that went to McMaster too that Sonia knows. Social gatherings always moke me a little depressed in the aftermath. We went home a monday afternoon and i was home by 6pm.
The next weekend i went to Universal Studios with Ayako and Chika and her friend Erin.
After fla we went to a mall and i bought some shorts and we had ramen... i had a different type that i dont remember the name of with vegetables and it was pretty good and ayako bought us these fish shaped pastries like waffles with creme in them that were quite yummy. Then we drove to Universal Studios which is in Osaka. It was a good day and really hot. We had to stand in line for a long time. I went on a rollar coaster. It was the first one. Do you remember the time when i got in a rollar coaster (the one that goes through the mountain) at wonderland and jumped out at the last second? I got in and we sat in a row and they put the big bar things over us and we had to wait a long time for it to start and i had a small anxiety attack becasue i wanted to jump out but i couldn't because of the bar thing. But i took deep breaths and told myself it was okay and to just be calm and it was okay. Some boys in line were looking at me and laughing inside i think becasue i was making the most terrified faces. The rollar coaster was scary and i closed my eyes a lot and when we went down it felt like i was falling without anything around me or maybe like flying but i can see how it could be fun in a way. After that we got raspberry beer at the pink panther store and strawberry ice cream bubble tea floats. Oh! and i almost forgot! I won Ayako a elmo toy at ring toss! It was very exciting, I was very proud of myself. Ayako loves elmo. We watched a parade with a sesame street float and elmo and cookie monter and big bird and the yellow one i forget the name of and the count were all there. And the float looked like it was made out of lego. It was pretty cool. There was a hello kitty float too but it wasn't as cool. After that we had to wait in another long line for the spiderman ride. In line me and Erin talked about all the cartoons we watched when we were kids cause she's from Canada too... Hamilton in fact. I guess the spiderman ride is really cool cause you ride in a car and wear these glasses and then you can see all these hollograms and the car spins and stuff and takes you through this story where the bad guys come and get you and spiderman gets you and it feels hot when there's fire and stuff but I got scared of all the bad guys cause it looked too real so i closed my eyes for most of the time and tried to stay calm. Maybe I don't have a very good grip on reality. Or maybe I'm crazy. Me and Ayako said goodbye to Chika and Erin and got some Mos burger and drove home.
Last weekend I went to Motomachi in Sannomiya.
I went to a little second hand shop and the girl was really nice and told me she was a university student. I was going to ask her to be my friend but then I got shy. Making friends it no easier than asking a boy on a date. I went to another little second hand store down the street and it started to rain. They gave me an umbrella. They were really nice. It was clear plastic. I left it somewhere. I hope someone else finds it when it's raining. I went to the mall that looks like a waterfall where ayako danced and found the store where everything is 390 Yen. I walked back to China Town and had a varitable feast. I got crouquets (fried crispy things) at a store where they sell kobe beef. One was filled with mushy yummy vegetable stuff and one was filled with shrimp. I bought a round dunut that an old lady was selling at the station and i think she made them herself and it was really good too. I bought a little wrap that was filled with crispy sprouts and meat and it was pretty good. I sat in the rain on a little stone stump and ate gyoza on a stick and mango bubble tea which were very good and even better because I love the rain on a hot day. And i had meat on a stick and a long curl of fried potato on a stick from a little vender at the end which was very delicious. I love China Town to the max. We are definatly going to the big China Town near Tokyo when mom comes. I was thinking that I wanted to stay for the big Chinese New Year celebration in China Town but then i thought that I could just go to China for New Years cause that would be the ultimate. And then I went home.
Oh! and they asked me if I wanted to renew my contract for another 6 months. So until June 2009.
I said no.
