08/06/2006

SO... Okonomiyaki... its the best hangover cure in the world. An okonomiyaki restaurant involves tables that have hotplates built into them, you order the flavour okonomiyaki that you want, chicken, beef, seafood, vegetable etc.. and all the ingredients come to you in a bowl, so that's egg, flour, water, cabbage and your flavour, and you mix it up in your bowl and pour it onto the hotplate like a pancake. The only annoying thing is that it takes about 15 minutes to cook, and when you've had too much to drink and you just want food and you can smell it and see it cooking... its the longest 15 minutes of your life!!
So it cooks in front of you, you flip it over so both sides are cooked, then when its ready you cover it in mayonnaise and special okonomi sauce and fish flakes. Sounds gross, but its so so so good!!! Then you chop it up using this weird metal spatula thingy and eat it up, right off the hotplate. Such a small thing and not well known in other countries... its like a Japanese secret!!

If any of you ever come to Japan, you MUST try it.

Well... life in Japan... today is quite a weird day actually. We've had beautiful hot sunny weather for the last 2 weeks, but the weather people are reporting that the rainy season is coming and will hit us before the week is out. Today is a little bit eerie, you know that movie 'twister' where before the twister hits the sky is a creepy green colour and has this eerie silence but you can hear wind approaching? Its like that, its a still, muggy day, then all of a sudden well get a huge gust of wind which bangs all the doors in my apartment closed and makes whistling noises, then it all goes quiet again..... the quiet before the storm...

I'm thinking the rains gonna start by this evening.... and apparently it wont stop for 3 weeks... damn it...

But its the humidity that's gonna kill us. The last few days have been really quite quite warm and dry, and I can hear all the airconditioners in other apartments near mine cranked up, along with the airconditioner in our office, and its only like 27degrees, its beautiful!! And I'm like, seriously people, its not that hot... I have to take a jacket to work to wear in the staff room during lesson breaks coz its so fricken cold in there!!!

But I hear its very cold in Adelaide at the moment? Quite bizzarre for the beginning of June, I'm glad it wont be winter here till December, I can definitely wait that long.

Last Sunday we had such a fun night, we were throwing a party for Meaghan who's leaving for Tokyo next Monday, and we decided to have a slumber party. So we had most of the staff there, all dressed in their pjs and we did all the traditional slumber party things, we played pass the parcel, we had scavenger hunts we even played truth or dare! The funny thing was that, you know Nabi who owns Sala Sol? He and his staff had had a very big night the previous night and were all to drunk to go to work, so they decided to close the bar that night and come join our party, they are hilarious!! Where in Adelaide can you close a bar coz your too drunk to go to work!!!

Were very excited, Nabi has a big screen projector in his bar which is always showing English soccer matches, coz he loves soccer so much, and Australia has its first world cup game vs. Japan next Monday at 10.00pm. So, at 10.00pm next Monday night, 3 of us Aussies are gonna be sitting in front of that big screen projector watching the world cup, surrounded by crazy Japanese soccer fans... actually maybe that's not such a good idea come to think of it... Well, lets just hope Australia wins!! Well be hearing chants of Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi! The only Australian merchandise I brought with me is a stuffed kangaroo which Tash Hammersley gave me, and a stuffed koala that mum gave me, so ill have them with me, maybe well scour the 100yen shop for some green and yellow face paint!

I've begun a mission while in Japan. I found a whole heap of origami paper in the cupboard in my apartment that an old tenant had left behind. I've decided that while staying here for however many years, and origami paper is cheap, I'm going to make 1000 paper cranes. So, paper crane count so far... 39.

No luck with martial arts yet, I've been doing alot of over time lately, my flatmate had to go back to Australia after some serious medical problems came up, so I'm in the apartment by myself and am doing alot of her shifts for her, which I don't mind coz we actually get paid overtime rates, unlike my last jobs... (I'm getting a nice healthy pay check next month...) so I haven't had much time to go back to the place I found, and when I have, I've just been too lazy!

I asked about the ikebana classes I found, but they are only on Saturdays at 12, and I work Saturdays 10-5. There was a mix up with my Japanese lessons, coz it turns out I knew more Japanese than they thought I did, so they took away my great teacher who spoke perfect English, and have given me a teacher who speaks barely any English, my first lesson with her is next Wednesday and I am very worried that I wont understand a single thing she tries to teach me, as she will be teaching me in Japanese... arranging to meet next Wednesday was an exhausting task in itself...

Oh, Speaking of exhausting... I had my first kids class yesterday. Man, I am never ever ever doing that again... It was horrible.

Apparently everybody told me that the class I was given was the worst class in the whole school, they were such terrors, 3 7-year old boys who did nothing but run around and hit each other for 40 minutes. When it finally finished I went back to the staff room and sat down and literally could not get up to go to my next lesson, I was so tired... Mum, nana, Marianne, Jackie and Beck... HOW THE HELL DO YOU DO IT????? And apparently this class is gonna be a regular thing for me now... oh how joyous...

Well on that happy note, id better get going, I start work in an hour...

Love you all still! And miss you all still!!!!
BIG BIG BIG HUGS
Lesley xxxooooo