Oh yes, on Monday, we had whale meat for the first time in years (they say) for school lunch. Apparently, in those days when harpooning whales was done on a regular basis, they had it for school lunch quite often. Now it's very rare so the school made it a very special occasion.

Although it did look nice and meaty, sauted in sweet soy sauce with sesami, I just couldn't face it. I honestly eat anything and will usually try anything. I just never expected whale meat to be served for school lunch! I mean, there are 500 kids in this school and imagine if all the elementary school children in Yokohama had it? I'm thinking 500 whales must've been killeed to serve these children. I mean it's a really rough estimate, because I don't know how big the whales they ate were, but I'm thinking more than one! I'm pretty sure they have been taught that whales are endangered, but the students didn't really seem to think twice. I understand that it's a dish served in Japan and it has been for years and years. For the first time since I started working, I refused to eat all of what was required to eat. The children seemed understanding when I said I can't eat it, so I think they understand now that I'm not totally Japanese.

But now I'm doubting whether I did the right thing. They already killed the whale and has been distributed to feed me so did I waste it and has been thrown away? Isn't that worse than eating it?

On a more positive note, I managed to read all of the Akira comics. The story was so complicated- I don't think I got it, but it certainly explained a lot of the missing pieces from the film.
I also read a comic book called 彼女を救う５１方法 translated as "51 ways to Save Her". It basically makes a few predictions about what would happen to Japan and its individuals if a big earthquake (7 on the rictor scale) hits central Tokyo. It also gives you a few tips on how to survive in a situation like this :-D
I don't really know if I have an obsession with futuristic and pessimistic (but has a slightly optimistic ending) genres, but I seem to be reading a lot of them lately.

Last weekend, Taka and I went to take a trip to Hakone, where it's very famous for its hotsprings and having a great view of Mt Fuji.

Our real purpose of going there was to go to the Little Prince Museum, which was so charming! I loved that book ever since I was 17 and when I read the book in Japanese again, I found a bookmark, which advertised this museum. I was so pleased. When you enter the place, it really looks like a dream land. There's a bubble machine that constantly blows pretty bubbles by the entrance and I was trying to catch the big ones like a little puppy. Taka caught one with his eye and he swore that he'll never go near that machine again. hehe. There were also little stations where you can make huge bubbles and I was competing with this 8 year old boy on who can make the biggest bubble. Inside the museum was very creatively decorated, charming and informative. They still had the original writings and draughts of the book's drawings and pages and I learned that the author was actually good at drawing despite what he said in his book. We walked through the gardens, which is supposed to resemble a small French village and came across this little hut, which was filled with children's books. Taka saw his favourite book and we took a picture of it (to be shown on Facebook soon). THis is probably the best museum I've ever been to and I would recommend it to anybody who visits Japan, although I would also like to mention that I haven't been to a real museum in Japan yet (nope, not even the national Museum) and have been going to a lot of small weird ones like the curry museum and Ramen Museum (I definitely would recommend this too- it's made to resemble parts of Yokohama city in the 50s).

We got to our accomodation and we were very sceptical about this place, because of the name. It's called Cesar and made us thinkn of a lion that was the muscot of an advert for apartments. It actually turned out to be a really nice place and our room was a fire escape, which Taka and I thought... "great! If there's ever a fire, we'll get to escape first!". We went to the hotsprings near by, but on the way back, the last bus left so we had to walk in the dark in the mountains. We got back to our accomodation with beautiful glowing skin, had a good full meal then went to the hotsprings in the hotel, which countains radiation. It's good radiation apparently... you know.. the type you use for radiotherapy... apparently. Well, I don't care. Now I have the most beautiful skin in the world and everyone envies me for it. lol

Oh yeah, to finish off, we had wasabi flavoured ice-cream. It wasn't great.

I'm so sick of the bad working environment and attitude people have towards it in this country. I'm tutting like Alan Partidge and all I could say is: "This country!".

I've never heard of a decent company in Japan. My friend Mo is experiencing some difficulties with her company Nova, because they are in such financial trouble, they're having trouble paying their employees. My boyfriend Taka is finding it difficult to face his co-workers everyday, because they're dumping their own jobs on his desk, expecting him to complete their jobs. When he doesn't have a clue what to do, they tut and tell him to figure it out by himself. He was also tricked into taking this job, because his boss told him that in 5 years time, he'd be able to work abroad and would be going on many business trips. But all he's doing now is booking train and airplane tickets for his co-workers.

Now my company. Compared to what my friends are going through, it's not really worth mentioning, but I will anyway. I'm only supposed to be working 29.5hrs a week, but I've been working 8 and a half hours including a 45min break since April. I'm only supposed to be working 6hrs a day. I've been told by my company that if this happens, we shouldn't complain directly to the schools, but to the company. So I have. I received a phone call from my trainer the other day and said that I'm working the right amount, because the 29.5hrs a week only applies for the teaching time. I argued back by saying that the other seem to be working less hours than me and he simply said that that shouldn't be the case. I read my contract and my group leader agreed with me that it states: "employee shall work 29.5hrs a week between 8:30 and 5". Well, it doesn't say anything about TEACHING TIME. Yeah, I prepare for my lessons and take care of kids for fun and I'm volunteering. Ugh, they're all fucking liars!! My group leader and I had a long discussion about this and he's going to write an official complaint letter to my company. Something has to be done. I can't let them manipulate me nor anyone else for their own fucking benefit. Apparently, one of our trainers called all ALTs "lazy, flakey bastards". I think it's them who are the lazy flakey bastards, because they just sit on their fat asses all day in the office getting what we've earned for the company. They say that if we have any complaints, then we shoud write it in our monthly reports and they'll sort it out. Bullshit. They only sort things out only if it's an easy task to handle.

I feel like all my effort has been wasted, because of my company's ungrateful attitude towards my effort.

I would like to get a better job, but I honestly don't think there are any honest company left in Japan because every company is facing financial difficulties. It's all due to bad management and people's defeatist attitude. They work over their working hours (like Taka who works about 12hrs Mon to Fri), spend thier Saturday and Sunday at work, because they can't complete their task during the week. If they don't they'll get fired. If you take a little paid vacation, you'll be a reject, because you're considered to be an irresponsible person.

Japanese work ethics simply do not exist anymore and I know there's someone laughing and bathing in their own filthy riches in this long capitalist chain.

Most of these people do not have a life. When they do go out, they go out after work with their co-workers getting absolutely trashed in their suit and behave like preforming monkey (for example that time I saw a man dancing and singing naked with his tie wrapped around his dick in the Karaoke room next to ours). Girls replace their loneliness and insecurity with expensive clothes, cosmetics or just anything that would make your prettier. This results to becoming obsessed with how you look and make stupid judgements on people. They lose the ability to find something more valuable in life.

I've been incredibly lazy with writing my journal simply because nothing really much has inspired me to write anything interesting.

I noticed that I haven't talked an awful lot about my job. My job's great because I get to make things, create new games for learning and because English only just became a compulsary subject in elementary schools, I'm contributing a lot in making a curriculum for them!

Last week, I made a lesson plan for the 4th grades to practice how to use "she/he has", because I noticed that many Japanese people always cofuse "she" and "he", probably because the two words sound very similar to them (or am I supposed to say us..?). The title of the game is called "Draw My Monster". Basically, a person has to draw a monster, then describe it to the rest of the group and they have to draw the monster by listening to that person's description. For example: "She has a big face. She has 5 noses. She has 20 legs..." and whoever draws the monster closest to the original wins the game.

Choosing songs is also very cool. I was thinking of good, simple and appropriate songs to sing with the kids and I thought of the theme tune to Happy Days. I sang that with the 6th graders and they absolutely loved it! I wasn't quite sure about giving them the lyrics as we aren't supposed to teach them to read or write, but they all wanted it cuz they thought it'd be really cool to have lyrics to English songs, written in English. They tried really hard to read it and showed interest in learning English. I thought that was sweet.

The difficult task of teaching a language is to make sure that your lessons are coherent and organised, which is sometimes difficult to do as the Ministry of Education has commanded us not to use Japanese in English classes. It works for the younger grades, but as they become older, they want a lesson that's more concrete, because they get too old for dancing and playing games. But when they respond to "How are you?" or "What drink do you like?" it makes me so happy, because I feel that I'm doing my job really well. When they even show an interest in the language, it makes me happy.

I started to remember that elementary school children are at the stage of developing their own opinions so I try to be an example rather than forcing my believes on them. This 6th grade kid who causes a lot of trouble around the school once asked me: "If I say tsuna instead of tuna in America, would they understand me?" and I said "I think generally, people will understand you, but if you want to avoid people asking you to repeat yourself, then it'll be better to say tuna, because that's the way people pronounce it in America" and he seemed content with my answer. I'm so fascinated by how children think. It's such ashame that adults stop thinking that way.

I've been living in Japan for 6 months now and I started to notice that placing a high value on speaking another language is over rated.

Ofcourse it's important when you want to communicate with people at a deeper level, but you can get away by pointing, gesturing and whatever form of communication people are capable of doing when you're just visiting. I thought it was just me, because I'm used to learning foreign languages and adapting in this way, but my friend Chris came to Japan without knowing a single word of Japanese except for "Arigatou", but he manages to do things without needing a lot of help from me. It's pretty impressive. He manages to understand things without me telling him exactly what to do, because he's also very experienced in living and travelling abroad. He appreciates the different cultures and manages to turn things into something positive, even though it must be frustrating or scary not to know what the signs say. He's tried everything on the menu even though some of the things I like may appear very disgusting to westerners, he'll just say "I'll give it a go".

A different country, different customs and cultures, but both (UK and Japan) are developed countries so things shouldn't be all that different... Or maybe it's because I've seen the good side and the bad side of both countries that I find more similarities than the differences. In a way, I'd like to think that one country is better than the other, but everywhere I go, there are always bad, rude and disgusting people as much as good and polite people.

For example, I think in the media, Japanese women are essentially beautiful, sexual, cute icons so they hardly say anything intelligent nor funny as the men. They just kinda sit there answering questions, being adored, laughing very sweetly by covering their teeth. It's a little more progressive in the UK in that sense. But when Taka talked about a typical Japanese girl and complained about how materialistic they are and how they don't think at all, then later asks me what it's like in the UK, it's hard to give a short response to that. Even though it appears to be more progressive in the UK, there are equally dumb, slutty, materialistic girls and boys as there are in Japan.

It's easy to say "oh Japan has more or Japan is more" or the other way around when you want to give a lazy short answer, but when I actually think about what I used to do in the UK or what I personally saw in the UK, it's a little bit more complicated than that. I noticed that I only do that when I'm too angry to be sensible with what I see and I start saying "in Germany/UK, it's unthinkable". THen I come home and think about it, then I get confused about why I would say such a thing, because it's a blatant lie! BUt ofcourse, this all depends on a situation. I still think that I get stared a lot in public and the public in Japan has a lot of power over people's behaviour.

I

Mo came to visit me from Osaka

I had a really fantastic weekend. Last week, we decided to start going Aloha dance classes every Saturday. When we got there, they said it was cancelled that day so we decided to go to the gym instead. It was pretty cool- we did all the gym stuff, did some rock climbing and got on this machine called "The Rodeo". This machine was quite strange, because it's supposed to replace the feeling of riding a horse and just sitting on it watching TV was the laziest excersise I've ever done. I had to buy a rucksack and got one, but I found this other cool bag that's supposed to be a totebag that looks like a yellow school bus. It's the coolest bag ever.

We headed back home, got a can of beer and started drawing a super hero character called "Nattou Man". Nattou is a type of food, which is supposed to be very good for you cuz it contains lots of protein and collagen, but many foreigners hate it cuz of the smell and are not used to the idea of eating rotting beans. Taka's drawing was very cute. It looked like a pokemon and mine looked like spiderman.

We walked to my local Karaoke place and on the way there, we found a grilled chicken restaurant and had a few drinks there. We got to the Karaoke place quite drunk together and we were told that we had to wait for an hour for a room. So we went to a convenient store at about 10:30, got some beer (well just me cuz Taka's body was totally red) and cheese. We were trying to find a park to hang out like a couple of 15 year olds, but we found a great place by the model houses with a table and chairs! We kinda looked like a couple of townies, but we didn't care. All we needed was cheese, drinks, cigarettes and somewhere cool. Greatest spot ever! We then headed back to the Karaoke place, sang for 2 hours (I sang lots of songs including "A whole new world", "My Sharona", "Be my baby" by the Ronettes and many more...!

When we finished our incredibly bad but lots of fun singing session, we walked to the park to sober up and we found that cool tarzan style swing. We had a go at it so many times and ended our night by going on a normal swing.

Oh my gosh!! I can't believe how hot it's getting in this country! It's not that it's that much hotter than Greece, but it's the humidity I can't take!! Whenever I say it's hot to Taka, he just looks at me with those sympathetic eyes and say "Oh no Maz... it gets a lot hotter..." It's not like it's my first summer in Japan, but I haven't experienced it for at least 7 years. It already got to about 35 degreece plus humidity this one day- I started to love hopping into department stores to cool down. When I was teaching the other day, I was sweating so much just by standing and pointing to the board. That was so embarrassing! I bought these things called sweat pads, which you put inside your shirt between your armpits to obsorb the sweat and that helps, but what about my face?! My make up?! My haaaaaaiirr?! I stopped styling it because as soon as I walk out of the door I start sweating and messes up my hair-do. I miss the British summer.

I've tried many kinds of food in my life, but I never got quite as far fetched as eating squid's organs, raw horse meat or even... (shiver) Raw horse meat was alright, it tasted like ordinary sashimi, but it just kinda felt too meaty.

I went to an Izakaya with Taka this one time and he ordered the "surprise dishes". When I looked at the weird looking things, I was kinda grossed out so I told Taka not to tell me their contents... It didn't taste terrible, but kinda weird. We left the Izakaya and Taka later told me that I ate squid's poo. I was horrified, just the thought that they would serve that as a dish just terrified me. I tried to keep an open mind about it, but I really doubt I'd be fighting to have squid's poo again...

I've been inspired by Jon's new haircut so I decided to get a haircut too.

Model pose


Supermodel pose

I think one of the greatest things about Japan is certainly the wide range of products available to you. The best place to spot them is certainly the 100 yen shops! I went in one today and from there, I managed to buy a red, perfectly comfortable underwear, a wooden box, stockings, balloons, gift bags, ribbons and a wizzard hat. There was also a mini toilet for uour long drives down the countryside!

Yup, there's still a lot to do in Japan and I'm hoping that I'll be able to go to Hokkaido during the summer to get out of the unbearably hot humid summer of Tokyo. I couldn't sleep well last night cuz it was so damn hot, I already had to turn on the airconditioning.

I've been working hard and doing over my contracted hours, but that's expected in Japan. But at least I get to run around playing tag and dodgeball out in the sun, paint, draw and make amusing silly stuff and come up with ideas to teach creatively. I love being a teacher in an elementary school!

I'm 24... I'm 24... I'm 24... I feel like I'm 254 years old. I'm old... I'm an ooooollld woman.

Anyhoo, despite the fact that I turned 24, my birthday was pretty nice, although I was suffering from a bladder infection and am still on anti-biotics at the moment.

I was supposed to go out for a romantic dinner in Yokohama with Taka, but since I was ill, we had to cancel it. But instead, he came over and took care of me, cooked for me and we celebrated my birthday with a huge strawberry cake with 2 long and 4 short candles. He also got me a very nice silver necklace and it was just a really touching birthday!

Then my sister came home and got me a yucky looking chocolate cake, but turned out to be the nicest chocolate cake I've had in a long time.

During Golden Week, Taka and I went to Miura Kaigan, which is located at the tip of the Kanagawa prefecture's peninsula. It was my first time at a Japanese beach and it looks very different from the ones I'm used to. Although it's just a beach, the surrounding buildings, sea creatures and condition of the sand makes a huge difference to the way a beach looks.

These are some random but thought were interesting things.