Thursday, November 24, 2005
Oh my... I didn't blog for so long! I have been busy with so many things in the past few weeks... studying Japanese, lesson preparation, and entertaining friends. I just finished my first test for my Japanese correspondence course and so I got a bit of free time to spare for a while... but it won't last long.
Yup, Japanese friends I met back in Toronto visited me here in my lovely inaka (countryside) area last weekend. I really enjoyed my time with them. I took them to a few places here in my area and we had a blast. Two are from Chiba/Tokyo area, and one from Kobe area. I really missed them a lot... I'm so glad I saw them again.
I am definitely coming back to Canada for Christmas. I already bought a ticket. It cost me 99,975 yen which is about a thousand Canadian dollars. The tickets itself only cost 710 yen but with the oil taxes, American/Canadian taxes and all other shits, the cost went up so much... the tickets are still cheap though. I also had my first eye exam and bought my first contact lenses here in Japan. It was a challenge since I can't speak Japanese that well but I survived. I managed to have the clinic staff understand my broken Japanese.
8:42 PM
Monday, November 07, 2005
My halloween "shows" are finally over... pheew... It was very exhausting. Imagine, I did this in all the classes in my 6 elementary/kindergarten schools in a span of a month. Well, the kids and the teachers had a great laugh. I was the superhero "Kabocha Man", meaning "Pumpkin Man" in Japanese... of course, I just made up the character. I gave so much candies as part of my Halloween thing! I must have given 700 candies altogether!
I also dressed up as the same superhero in my English conversation class I teach once a week.
We had an international food festival in my little city. Although I'm Canadian, the organizers put me in the Philippine pavilion. It made sense since the more countries they had, the better. We made two Filipino desserts: "maja blanca", which is a sort of pudding made of coconut milk, condensed milk, corn starch, and strips of fried coconut meat; and "bico" which is sticky rice mixed with melted brown sugar and coconut milk. The first one was a big hit. I made Filipino friends here in my city by joining this festival. They are sisters who have been in Japan for more than ten years. They are both married to Japanese men and have little kids who are so cute. I was introduced to a few more Filipinos after that. Filipinos are all over the place, even in my little tiny city in the middle of nowhere! It's amazing. These new friends are so nice, down-to-earth, and so friendly.
... working in the Philippine pavilion at my city's international food festival
8:42 PM
