Day 37: Fun in Sapporo

Good day people! Today was definitely an early start, something which I struggle with but oh boy not today.... well I lied.. I always hate having to get up but today it was a little easier!

Today Shiro-san took us to Sapporo, a place which I was planning to go on the bank holiday this month but thankfully he offered to take us which just makes him even more awesome than he usually is. He picked us up at 8:30 as it would be a couple of hours drive to Sapporo but the route there was really pretty and we got to see great landscapes such as hills and valleys as well as rivers. The autumn leaves made everything look even more beautiful! Though it was a little scary to think that in just over a month, all of it would be covered in a thick blanket of snow that's deeper than my height.

Countryside in Hokkaido

In addition, we had Shiro-sans wife with us and she is as awesome and lovely as Shiro-san. She doesn't speak much English so talking is a little difficult without Shiro-san to interpret but never the less she is so nice. When we arrived in Sapporo we parked in one of the strange futuristic Japanese parking systems. Basically you drive onto a platform, get out the car and watch it be carried away to some distant location where it is stored until you get back. I'm not sure how big these places are but they were definitely fitting a lot of cars in there!

Not the same but this is how I imagine their parking system works

Once we were parked, we went on a shopping tour around a big department store. Shiro-san wanted to find a new cell phone case and I wanted to try and find some Canon camera batteries as I would like a spare for when I run out of battery life on the go. I found them but they were way too expensive, also I tried to find a cheap tri-pod but the word 'cheap' doesn't really go down very well in this particular department store :( Despite this, it was still fun to walk around all the floors.

The floors varied in their products so much, there was definitely a structure but the difference in the floors was so strange. We rode the escalator up each floor and the decor would change completely as though we walked into a different building at times, it was very bizarre and interesting. We more or less got to the top of the building where we entered a shop called Uniqlo.

Now, Uniqlo is in England and it's actually quite a trendy and expensive place to go (which I only found out later from my aunt, thank-you!!) when we first looked around and I noted down the prices of all the products, the prices reflected those of Primark back home. I'm sure to a Japanese person they would be a lot more expensive but when you factor in the exchange rate of Yen to pounds, the clothes seem much much cheaper despite being of high quality.

I was very surprised when we were told to try on some fleece hoodies. Turns out Shiro-sans wife was buying me and my partner one each as a present which I thought was absolutely amazing. The fleeces look really nice and they're so warm to wear. With the changing weather it really was an amazing gift and I am so grateful to her for buying them. The one thing I will mention is that Japanese sizes are a little different to those in the UK. The waist line is pretty tight and the sleeves are too long but a part from that I have 0 reason to complain.

Wearing part of my cosplay with the new fleee.

After we had finished that part of the shopping, we began walking to a rather large building which turned out to be the highest point in Sapporo. What's even better is that we were taken up the building and we had a 360 degree view of the entire city center. It was amazing and breath taking and it's definitely inspired me to pay out to go up Tokyo Sky Tree when I'm there in the next few months. There are no other words I can say about Sapporo except that it's just awe inspiring and beautiful. My love for the city life is definitely not going anywhere soon, let me tell you that!

Sapporo is so amazing! Just like a smaller Tokyo.

Once we finished observing the city from the top of the tower, we headed for lunch at a nice Italian place. Now, this place was heaven and their pizzas were definitely pizza! It's a little disheartening to be taken to an authentic Italian style restaurant, the day after you immediately attempt to make your own pizzas but by no means was I going to complain! The food was literally to die for! It was all made fresh and I absolutely stuffed myself with bread, fondue, cheese and pizza.

A delicious fondue set with delicious salad but with deadly peanut oil :(

Three cheese and mozzarella

It's only safe to say that after we finished lunch we effectively waddled out of the restaurant. I'm also fairly certain we gained an obscene amount of weight from the amount of wheat we ate! It was delicious though and I'm already craving more as I type. But still, the adventure must continue!

We began to walk around the city exploring some of the main tourist attractions. One of which was an old military hall which was once part of the Hokkaido university but now it is owned by the government in commemoration. They also built a clock tower which makes it look really nice. Those of you that like Shingeki no Kyojin will love the place as the style matches that anime perfectly!

After the old military hall, we walked over to the old government building which was in a park like area surrounded by small lakes and ponds as well as gardens. It was really beautiful to see it in the middle of the sky scrapers and even though it was so out of place, it still fitted in with everything perfectly in a strange sort of way. Inside were a variety of different exhibits and cultural displays, most of which were beyond me and entered deep into the realms of archaeology, history and philosophy, but they were interesting never the less.

It was getting late in the day so we started to make our way back to the car park but on the way back I was asking about somewhere I could perhaps find anime and manga related products. Most specifically I was after posters or wall scrolls as my room is looking a little bare still though now I have some of my gaming posters up it's a little better. Still; more posters would be awesome. However we ended up being taken to a large book store and a massive section (Almost an entire floor) was dedicated solely to manga.

Whilst it's not what I really wanted, I was heavily occupied for probably the next twenty minutes as I flicked through various titles. However, all the books were in Japanese so I knew from the start that attempting to read a manga would be incredibly difficult but the desire to buy them was too much. I had to give in and decided to buy some manga from a series called: Akame ga kill, I have already watched all the current anime episodes so I know the plot and most of what happens which means I can use the mangas to focus on improving my reading ability. Though I am pretty sure it will take me a month to finish one volume!

Akame ga Kill, volume 1

With that, the day in Sapporo was at an end and we headed back to the car. Stopping at a bakery a long the way we bought some fresh bread and I got a baguette which tasted absolutely amazing. Fresh bread really is an amazing thing to have!

I fell asleep pretty quickly in the car on the way back as I had stayed up rather late the night before after having got back home from the Guten Tag so I was very sleepy. However at about twenty minutes before we arrived at our next destination, I woke up surprised to find that were not heading home but rather to another restaurant in Date, (about 30 - 40 minutes away from home).

I was a little worried as I really didn't know how much food I'd be able to eat and I was a little surprised with how much I did manage in the end. The food this time was Japanese but we added a few western classics like chicken nuggets to even things out. I've come to notice that with Shiro-san we succumb to western culture a lot more. Shiro-san actually prefers using a knife and fork and opposed to chopsticks!

So once more we had to waddle out of the restaurant and back to the car. I'm fairly certain I wouldn't need to eat again for the next few days after the amount of food that I consumed. It's also safe to say that I crashed out on the bed very quickly and slept for a long long long time. Luckily the next day is a bank holiday so I was able to sleep in and have yet another lazy day!

Thanks for reading and make sure to visit Sapporo if you can! I will definitely go back for the ice festival and maybe Christmas shopping soon!

Oyasumi!

Day 36: Pizza and Guten Tag!

Good evening or morning, depending where you're reading from!

Sadly today was a lazy day and I spent most of it washing clothes and cleaning up my room whilst getting in and out of bed. I usually hate lazy days but I'm finding them a requirement these days since I'm always so busy during the week.

In the evening I had decided to cook home made pizzas since it was kind've impossible to find a decent one in any of the local stores. Let's just say that whilst the pizzas did taste nice, they didn't look very aesthetically pleasing which many of you guys were keen to let me know... :( I will one day make a cooking video because with our available facilities, you really do have to improvise and it leads to some hilarious moments. Those of you that have been on Skype with me when I have cooked will surely agree with me. But anyway; here are the pizzas!

After eating we returned to our lazy day.However, our lazy day was interrupted when we got an unexpected phone call on our house phone. I really need to figure out how to answer this phone properly as I usually just answer and say "hello?" which isn't a good thing to do when you're in a foreign country. Either way, it turns out that there were people at the Guten Tag restaurant who were inviting us out for a late dinner and drinks. I looked at the clock and saw it was 20:30, already sort've late. HOWEVER! It is the Guten Tag and like mad men we got 'dressed' and ran out the door charging towards the delicious food.

We had a great time in the Guten Tag as usual and talked about many things ranging from things about to Japan to things about our home countries. All of which lead to some language barriers, specifically when we talk about sarcasm, an art that is sadly not recognized in Japan. Also the examples used for sarcasm by the women we were talking to were hilarious. They were literally using the example phrase: "You look so sexy." This definitely had me close to tears by the end of the night.

We finally left at around 23:00 which probably wasn't a good idea since we have a big day out at Sapporo tomorrow but it was definitely worth it. As usual they treated us to the dinner which did make me feel a little guilty but I am so grateful to everyone who has shown me kindness in Toya.

That's all for now, thanks for reading and drop me a note if you want one of my pizzas! ;)

Day 35: スイミ スイミ スイミ

Hey guys!

To briefly translate the title it simply says :Suimi suimi suimi, which I will explain later on in this post.

So today is Friday and the end of the week and as usual we are back at the Elementary School which is yet another great place to work, then again all the places are great to work at! The elementary school has to be one of my favorites though.

Ok so; First period! We were with the 5th graders for the first time so we did our self introductions again, thankfully I had revised mine the night before or else I'd have been all over the place *phew*. We then focused on

After the lesson was over we had break time. This time we went outside for break as the weather was pretty good and actually warm which is becoming less frequent these days in Hokkaido. (Insert another 'Winter is coming' joke here). We played football with the kids and I was able to score a goal but sadly our goal keeper was less than attentive when it came to the opposing team. I'm pretty sure half way through he left our game and joined someone else so it's safe to say; we lost. Though I did still score which made me very happy and made me feel a lot less useless than I actually am when it comes to sports.

After break we were to be working with the sixth graders. This class terrifies me purely because the teacher quizzes us on their names! Of course I know learning their names is very important and I do try but it's so difficult! I struggle even with English names so throwing me into a class of Japanese students and tested on their names is probably my worst nightmare as a teacher. However I did notice a little something: their desks had their names written in Hiragana on the front. This worked for a few minutes before I was caught out and they covered the name tags :(the meanies.

Once the embarrassment of remembering only their western nicknames, we began the lesson. We focused on schedules such as what time we woke up and what time we went to bed. This was mixed in with geography and time zones. Now for an interesting difference in Japanese and English class rooms: Japan still use the blackboard (or chalkboard, whichever you prefer). England however either use the whiteboard or more frequently, the interactive white board.

Japan doesn't have the interactive whiteboard and still use chalk by the truck load, so it came as a surprise when they pulled out a flat touch screen LCD TV loaded with an interactive English listening program. It was sorter comical to see it wheeled in front of the black board as the contrast between technology was so plain to see. The children definitely enjoyed working from it though and they paid close attention to the American voice speaking all the times and places.

The teacher began drilling the class on what time they did certain activities, including getting the students to move around the classroom and ask each other (as well as us) what time we did certain things. Let's just say the time I go to sleep was brought into a questionable light. (Totally isn't around 1am) though to be fair... it came to light that the teacher goes to bed at 9pm and wakes up at 3am. Why you may ask? Well..... I have no idea.

Once the 6th graders class was over, we headed back downstairs (these stairs will make us so fit by the end of the year) Lunch was to be with the 2nd grade class. I still love the way Japanese schools do lunch here by having all the tables in a circle so everyone can see and talk to each other. I think it's so much better and even entertaining because everyone can talk and laugh together. It really does make lunch time a lot more enjoyable and it means that no one is excluded; something I believe is a huge issue in English schools.

In addition, the responsibility the children are given in regards to preparing lunch is such a huge contrast compared to back home. In England, there would be an uproar by the parents if it was even suggested the English students did the same as the Japanese do. Basically; the lunches are all made off site in one place and delivered to many schools in the area. They're dropped off at the school and the students, not the teachers... will carry the heavy metal containers to their classroom (some of which are upstairs) and then begin to arrange the room themselves, set the tables and serve all the food in bowels around the class. No one will eat or drink until everyone is seated and "Itadakimasu" is said. The strictness of this routine is very inspiring and it just shows how much a child can really do by themselves without having to be guided by the teacher at all times. These children range from the age of 6 to 12 as well.

But enough of the seriousness, after the lunch we burst into song and sadly not dance. Soon the children will have a culture festival at their school and the 2nd grade class will be performing a dramatized version of suimi. Suimi is a story about a fish who's clan is all eaten by a giant tuna. He finds refuge with a big group of red fish who live in fear of big tuna and through his uniqueness he helps save the day and helps the red fish defeat the evil tuna. I think that's the plot at least, it's kind've hard to figure out when it's all in Japanese.

Either way, they were recording the chorus to have as a backup tape and they got me and my partner to join in the singing. Singing in Japanese is extremely difficult, especially when the words are written with Japanese characters but we managed it in the end after at least a couple of attempts. It was great fun though and afterwards we got to watch the children rehearse the play which takes me back to the times of doing plays in my primary school.

After they finished rehearsing it was the end of the day and we'd finished. However my day surely wasn't over. That day I had been invited to volley ball with the teachers. I'll tell you now, watching a bunch of teachers are different genders and ages play volley ball together after school is hilarious no matter what. I found that when playing volleyball, my height means I often hit the ball way too high which is a slight issue as the other team seemed to be very good. We did win our first game however and at the end of it all, I only hit one teacher in the face! Even worse though; it was the 2nd grade teacher, the one I really get on well with... yikes. He was very cool about it though and there were a lot of laughs as language broke down and I pretty much ended up bowing and shaking his hand in apology. I was so mortified but everyone took it very well and no grudges were held.

By the end of the game, we had been smashed by the other team and lost all the final games. However, I still had so much fun and I never thought I would get a chance to play volleyball with a group of teachers in my life. I surely do recommend schools back home have a weekly teacher get together where they do a silly game and make a fool of themselves, it's so much fun!

By now I was so tired... yet I still had to hurry home and get some food because tonight was Yosakoi get again. I'm still struggling with Yosakoi but I am getting there, I have until the 23rd of November before my 'debut' so plenty of time to practice and refine my movements. I'll just have to make sure I study hard! So that's all for today, it's been a busy one but it was a blast and I'm really glad that even after 35 days I am still enjoying Japan as much as I did back on Day 1 in Tokyo.

I'll write more soon! Bye!

Day 34: Learning Japanese

Hey readers!

First I need to start off by saying that writing these blog posts for each day is getting quite difficult. Especially for the days where we more or less have a normal day. I do want to clarify that it's not because I'm bored or disappointed with anything as I don't think I've yet to have a bad day here in Japan. I'll try to keep these posts up as much as possible but sadly I may switch to writing weekly blog posts later on in the year once things become routine.

Never the less, today had a little something different to our usual days. Today was the first day we were to be given a Japanese lesson from a private tutor. Our tutor originally teaches English to native Japanese people (the tutor being Japanese herself) but she has offered to help me and my partner learn Japanese for one hour a week at the Sogo Center which is brilliant.

For my lesson, we started off identifying simple katakana vocabulary to see what my initial level was and having done Japanese for a year I didn't really have any difficulty with it. The hardest part was probably the American dialect which threw me off a few times. These days though I can slowly feel my English idioms slipping away and being replaced by American ones.

Once the Katakana was over, we began to look at some basic sentences, nothing I hadn't already learnt but it was very nice to have a chance to refresh my memory as I had forgotten quite a few things since it had been a long time since I learnt them originally. The final thing we focused on was listening and repeating the voice on the tapes which is extremely difficult, but I can't doubt it's usefulness as it has really helped my listening ability.

Overall, I enjoyed the lesson and I get on well with the tutor and despite the lesson being very simple and containing information I probably should've remembered (oops) it was a great chance to recap everything and learn what I need to work on more.

After the Japanese lesson we had our usual lunch in the Sogo Center but I should clarify that I have now found mini pizzas in the convenience store so I have a chance to reminisce about the food back home. (I do love Japanese food, I just like to have a taste of home, or rather Italy when I can.) So after a nice lunch we finished up any studying and headed over to the after school club.

The after school club was the usual running around after the children, playing dodgeball and watching the children suffer at the hands of homework. It's great fun and it's not too taxing which is nice as it's a good way to unwind after a long day of studying. The atmosphere is always very light and relaxed. I often find myself staying very late at the club, officially we finish at 16:30 but I'm pretty much always there until 18:00. My favorite game has to be dodge ball, they play it rather differently to back home but It's still fun regardless.

Sadly, that's all I can write about for today and I wish I had more but today was another standard day, still it is one that I will treasure for a long time to come. Thanks for reading and I hope to get some videos out soon.

Oyasuminasai!

Day 33: Life of a salary man

Good morning folks,

Today I don't really know what to write about as we pretty much sat at the desks the entire day planning our lessons and studying. However on the plus side I now have my Hokkaido video uploaded to my YouTube so please head over and check it out: 

The only other thing that happened today was the Blood Moon, which I am not sure was visible back home in England but either way it was really cool to watch. It fitted in perfectly as I did my adult lesson on English folk lore and nothing beats a good folk tale on a night with a red room and eclipse. Tomorrow I will be having my first Japanese lesson from a different teacher so it will be interesting to see how that goes. Other than that there sadly isn't much to report today. Oh but I can happily say I will be going to Sapporo on Sunday this week which I know will be amazing, I've been wanting to go for a while now and was going to on the bank holiday but thankfully I can go a little earlier and not via a 2 hour coach journey! Hooray!

That's all for today folks, So good night and enjoy the video!

Day 32: Sleeping on the job

Ohayou Gozimasu...

Ok so today wasn't exactly filled with energy and laughter as you can probably guess from the title. I had fun today but the night before was a horrible night for getting sleep so I woke up pretty late and feeling pretty run down. Today we were in the High School, which would mean some serious teaching work (not the best thing for a sleep deprived teenager) however when we arrived at the High School we were told that they'll be only one class for the day as the others are on a school trip to Kyoto (Lucky buggers). Since the other classes were out, we had two hours to kill in the library.

Now... I may or not may have.. depending who you ask, fallen asleep in the library for those two hours. Thankfully I was informed that no one came into the room and the whole time I had paper underneath my arms and I was holding a pen so anyone looking in would hopefully assume I was just writing. Whilst it's pretty bad I did fall asleep, we thankfully didn't have anything else to do, so nothing was wasted.

However, the two extra hours sleep really did help as once I was awake again and back to life, I was filled with my usual energy and excitement for the day. We finally settled into the classroom and this time we did the usual repeat the following phrases but then we got asked more questions by the class. At first the questions came in English and it was the usual stuff about where we want to go, our favourite foods and hobbies but after the students clicked that I was understanding their Japanese slightly, they requested I ask them questions... only in Japanese.

Now, my Japanese is rough at the best of times but having been put on the spot in front of a class of 8 - 15 teenagers who all speak native Japanese; it becomes a tiny bit more daunting. I tried my best and asked things such as:

どこにすんでいますか。Doko ni sunde imasu ka? - Where do you live?
なんさいですか。Nan sai desu ka? - How old are you?
しゅみは何をしますか。Shyumi wa nani o shimasu ka? - What hobbies do you do?

Needless to say, they were very impressed when I managed to stutter out the questions. Every time there would be a massive chorus of: oooooooo or sugoii (amazing) which was really flattering yet embarrassing at the same time. Still it was fun and it lead to a few laughs at me trying to crawl my way through the most intense Q&A of my life.

Once it was over we headed back to the Sogo center as we were to be leaving for Onsen elementary school soon where we would meet with Stephanie (The American ALT living in Abuta) We were to be teaching an elementary class together in the fancy building that does not have many students in it. But anyway; when we arrived Stephanie was running late by no fault of her own, so we were taken into the class room by ourselves where yet again we had to introduce ourselves in Japanese and then English. I think I need to refresh my memory on my introduction because it's really getting sloppy these days.

The class were talking about countries they'd like to visit and what they'd like to eat and see while they are there. We helped them with pronunciation before they stood in front of the class and presented their big poster with the information written on it. The class were really good at English and were using some seriously complicated country names such as Argentina and Venezuela. Plus they included native dishes to those countries, or well I hope they did and they didn't just make such a bad mistake that we couldn't interpret what the food actually was.  

When Stephanie arrived we kind've got replaced by her but that's fine, the kids are more comfortable with her and she really is great with them plus she's been here for a couple of years now. I hope later in the year I can have a similar relationship with the children which I am sure I will if I keep giving it my best. Once the day was finished we were to go to yet another place: Onsen after school club.

This after school club is probably the smallest out of them all but boy the children again are very lively. They tricked us pretty good as well, when we first went in we sat down and had snack time as they do everywhere and then they all went over to the books and began reading books.. it was pure heaven and relaxation for us.... or at least it was for about 10 minutes, then chaos ensued. We began chasing the children around as they climbed on our legs and tried to drag us to the floor.

All of the children at the club are boys so it tends to be a bit rougher than the other places. Eventually we managed to channel the energy into the most disorganized soccer game ever which allowed them to use up some energy. Though, that being said: I'm fairly certain the children here are solar powered because they just don't stop. Soccer turned into dodge ball about half way through with an entirely different rule set to the other after school clubs, making it difficult to try and understand.

Later on it became a game of catch and then finally a little more relaxing (though equally confusing) version of Hide and Seek. At the end of it all I was so exhausted and my legs were killing me. Though I make sure never to show the children that I am exhausted. We all sat down and watched some Tom and Jerry before we were picked up and taken back to the house.

Sadly, the day was not over yet as tonight I had Yosakoi dancing which is something I am definitely going to keep doing. I have now been told that my official debut performance will be on the 23rd of November and for those of you that don't know, that my friends is both the date of the towns culture festival where lots of people will come to watch, but also the day of my 19th birthday. SO! Yet again, I am on stage doing a performance on my birthday, though thankfully this time I wont be in make up and a dress. (Pantomimes... enough said.)

By time I got home I crashed into bed with my sore legs as I had practiced extremely hard tonight, barely taking any breaks as I was determined to learn the routine and be ready for next month. I'm really excited for the performance and I can't wait. That's all for today, it was definitely a busy one and I am sure I will wake up with sore legs yet again, but alas I do not care. Tomorrow is a desk day with barely anything to do so I can sit and relax for the most part.

Oyasuminasai!!~

Day 31: Back on the job

Konichiwa,

So with it being Monday I am now back on the job and powering on full batteries for the morning at Toya Nursery. Which is a good thing because boy they can be a rowdy bunch. However first I must address the issue with the temperature of Toya.... It is freezing. I'm now into wearing my thick ski jacket and gloves and we're only in the early days of October! No more than a week ago was it nice and sunny with a lovely 15 - 20 Celsius temperature.

But anyway, we rode to the nursery in the cloudy and cold weather. I wanted to get inside quickly and warm up. I think you could see the exact moment my heart sank when I entered the door to yet another cold room. I had a strong suspicion it wouldn't be heated but I hated that I was right. To clarify, Japanese use mostly single room heaters and most buildings are very old with thin walls that don't allow for central heating.

However this does come with one huge advantage! For the rooms that do have a heater, they are the nicest rooms you can ever walk into and you'll never want to leave them. The hall was one such room and it has a big heater. I think I stood in front of that thing for at least 10 or 15 minutes before a stampede of children dragged me away from the warmth.

The heating here is an interesting concept, I would've expected a place known for being so cold to have a much more insulated structure with central heating but apparently not, no matter.  I'm not about to let a little cold ruin all my fun (I'll probably think different when buried under 2 meters of snow)Today we were inside for a lot more and we did the usual running around, chasing the children and playing with paper swords, planes and even this time body armour.

I asked whether or not we would be going on a walk today and was a little disappointed when they said we may not be due to the weather being pretty cloudy. However after an internal debate between staff members we finally went for a walk which was surprising considering the cold weather and the fact the children were so small and young. I'm now 99% sure they are naturally cold blooded!

We walked up through the town up a dirt road where we came across a familiar yet strange sight. A chestnut tree which was dropping conkers. However, while in England we also have conkers in a spiky green shell, here the shells are super spiky and super super sharp. I found out the hard way as I picked one up thinking it would be the same as England. Oh boy, big mistake and it's probably a good thing the children cannot understand English or the concept of swearing because the pain was bad. I was picking out the thorns for a good 10 minutes afterwards. I suppose the experience was very similar to giving a hedgehog a bear hug with your hand.

After that incident we began to collect the conkers and put them all into a big plastic bag which was pretty much full by the end of the thirty minutes we were there, On the way back we stopped off at a tree which was growing wild blackberries. Apparently they are safe to eat but I did stop and wonder if they actually belonged to the house we were outside, taking them from. Either way the teachers had me use my height to get the biggest bunches and pull them down from the tree. A few did splatter on my face and my hands were a sticky mess afterwards but it was really fun to see everyone enjoying themselves despite doing what may have possibly been illegal back in England ;)

Back at the nursery it was time for lunch, this time without the miso soup and it was pretty tasty though I am still trying to get the hang of forcing certain foods down that I just don't like. As I said before, leaving food here is a big no no so I always try my best to eat everything. I have to give it to the children, they can be very brave when it comes to eating food as they cannot leave the table until it's all gone. The only time I've seen waste food is usually by us foreigners.

After the morning at the nursery we returned to the Sogo center with not much to do except catch up on any planning work and browse the internet whilst studying a bit more Japanese. I'm slowly getting better with my Japanese in some regard. Speaking is still a shamble because everyone uses plain form and speaks casually (More so than I expected) but my reading and writing is getting a little better and I am starting to recognize more kanji. It's pretty much been a month now so I'll hopefully be posting a first impressions video on YouTube soon, as well as the Hokkaido video. Hopefully people enjoyed the Tokyo video. They'll be a lot more to come as I travel around.

That's all for today folks, so thanks for reading! Oyasuminai!

Day 28/29/30: A sick weekend

Hey guys,

Sadly this post will be rather short and contains pretty much all of my weekend and the entire of Friday because sadly, I was ill. This meant I was in bed for pretty much the entire day and didn't even get dressed at all except to run to the seicomart and try and find some food that I could actually eat.

As I'm writing this I am starting to feel a bit better so hopefully I will be back to normal tomorrow on Monday. On the plus side, I did get a chance to edit up and post a video (finally) so instead of a blog post this weekend please enjoy that! Thanks for reading!!!

Day 28: Honcho Nursery and Kazekko After School Club

Hey readers, before today’s blog post I want to make a quick announcement about my blog and the several missing days’ worth of posts. Since I am now far behind and every time I try to catch up I fall even further behind. In light of this I’ve decided that I will now continue posting blog updates from today. I will still post the missing days but I will be doing them during free times. As for YouTube videos, I will be beginning to edit this weekend though at the moment I am unwell so it may end up being next weekend.

Evening guys! Today has been an absolutely amazing day in terms of work. Recently more and more so I have been filling so happy with the way my life is going right now. Today we were to start in Honcho Nursery and Kazzeko after school club. Both of these places were in the town of Abuta which was a 15 minute or so drive from our home in Lake Toya. Erika-san picked us up at 9am and we drove to the nursery first.

We arrived just in time to see all the children grabbing their hats and shoes as they were about to go on a walk. We quickly put our stuff away and got ready ourselves and I have to say: the yellow caps the kids wear are so adorable! The way they all have to hold hands while walking is also so cute and there’s always some disagreement on who should hold mine.

I should express now that the Japanese attitude towards health and safety is so different to in the UK and even USA. Whilst they still have their own health and safety laws, I have come to learn that risk assessments are either non-existent or aren’t scaring teachers from taking children outside of the school grounds. We’ve been on so many spontaneous walks with a variety of locations and not once has anyone started screaming about pieces of paper. It’s really refreshing to be given a large degree of freedom in working with children.

The other thing that is very different is the attitudes towards contact with children. Back home when I was working in schools it was always a no no to hug a child, even if they were crying their eyes out and tried to hug me themselves. Playing also had to be safe and running around, climbing up things was always frowned heavily upon. HOWEVER! In Japan, the staff will happily sit and watch an army of 5 and 6 year olds beat us to death with paper swords and tackle our legs and all I can say is that it is absolutely brilliant!

Children can be children and it makes me so happy to be able to witness it. I’ve come to describe Japan as a 1950’s setting with updated technology because that’s how it feels. No one’s terrified of each other, communities work and know each other as well as attend events. Children play outside without fear and people stop in the street to talk to each other. It reminds me a lot of the stories my grandma back home tells me about and I am so glad that I have been able to witness something so similar to how it was for her when growing up.

But anyway! We went on a massive long walk up to the observation lookouts where you could see the Volcanos. It was the same place Taka-san took us during the first week of us being in Toya. The journey was very long and tiring but I was smiling the entire way. We would mess around slightly as we walked by running to catch up to the group, getting tangled up since we were holding hands with the children and also see if they could hi-5 us from a height of 5ft. It was brilliant and so much fun.

The highlight of my day has to be the Kazeko after school club. When I first went to visit Kazekko I was surprised by how many girls there was. The number was along the lines of 19 girls and 5 boys. However, I was a fool to believe that this place would be calm and quiet just because it was mostly girls because oh man,.. they can be very energetic. For the most part we just ran around and did keepy uppy with these strange inflatable paper cubes and then played Othello which it would seem my partner hates.

The most amusing part of the day was a little girl called Azumi-chan. When I first met her (before I knew her name and we’d just arrived at the after school club) she was crawling around on all fours and meowing to me. I wasn’t really sure what to do so I played a long and knelt down and patted her head smiling. She was really adorable and really small for a 7 year old. For the rest of the night she was very clingy and tried constantly to be with me which I didn’t really mind as she was very funny to watch.

From what I can tell she has some extra support from the staff for whatever reason and they’ll often hold her meaning she couldn’t run around freely but every time they did that she would look at me and start stretching her arms towards me. It was really adorable. When I asked her name she wouldn’t tell me so I asked the sensei who was with us and when she told me it was Azumi, the little girl went bright red and hid in the teacher’s arms.

The most embarrassing part came when it was time for her to leave. She waved and shouted good-bye to me from the other end of the hall which made all the teachers laugh and they kept making comments that she had a little crush on me and that it was strange because she wasn’t usually fond of strangers or even other people. At that moment we were all going back into the main room anyway but as soon as I walked in, she ran up to me, grabbed my arm and dragged me over to low and behold.. her mother.

I stood there awkwardly as the teachers burst out laughing making me feel very embarrassed as I was not sure what to do as there I was with this little girl who is obsessed with me, showing me off to her mother who speaks 0 English and has never met me before. I managed to muster up a greeting in Japanese of ‘hajimemashite and douzo yoroshiku’. Once she did leave she continued waving all the way down the drive to me through the window. She seriously is the cutest kid I’ve met and I’ve worked with a lot of children so far.

So all in all, today was brilliant and I am loving every moment out here in Japan. Thanks for reading and make sure to check back tomorrow!