(01/12/03 - 31/12/03)
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01/12/03 |
Aerobics
As unlikely as it sounds, I've joined an aerobics class with Brandon. It's something to fill the void Yosakoi has left, now it's finished for the season! The class was great fun, and I'll definitely be keeping it up.
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06/12/03 |
Festivus for the Rest of Us - Thanksgiving dinner
AKA Christmas dinner (for the British!). Oodles of food. Five 12lb turkeys. Nuff said.
Had a fantastic time - it was great to see everyone there!
Specially for those of you who enjoyed (and complimented) the banoffee pie, here's the recepie: BANOFFEE PIE
And, of course...
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07/12/03 |
Visit to Tsuruga nuclear power station with the International Club (oh, and ice skating too)
About 20 of us (of which 2 were JETs, and one was Tom) got a coach down to Tsuruga, and had a tour of the nuclear power station there. It was actually really interesting, although most of the information was in Japanese. We did get a pack of information in English, though. And a free pen.
The tour brought back a lot of information that we learned doing the degree (which now seems so long ago!).
After the tour, we went to the fish market (which is huge) for lunch, then went ice skating or to an onsen. Laura, Tom and I, and most of our IC friends chose to go ice skating. For those of you who went skating with me in Bristol - I'm no better! It was excellent fun though, and I didn't fall over (although I did cause Tom to fall over...oops).
Sorry - no photos of today. Cameras weren't allowed at the power station, and I can't skate without a camera, and I didn't want to damage my prized possession!
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10/12/03 |
Cooking with the teachers
Well, it's exam week, and all the students and most of the teachers have been leaving at lunchtime. Not wanting to sacrifice any nenkyu (holiday days), I decided to stay with the other die-hard teachers (and believe me, there aren't many). To amuse ourselves, one of the home economics teachers arranged a cookery class for us.
About 10 teachers turned up to make pizza, hamu roru ("ham roll", but not like we have at home) and anpan. But mostly anpan.
Anpan looks just like a bread roll, but before cooking is filled with a vast amount of red bean paste. If you know me, you know the issues I've had with red bean paste! In my first two weeks in Japan, everything seemed to be filled with red bean.
We cooked a few pizzas, and all of the anpan and ham rolls. We then laid on a mini-feast for ourselves, complete with salad! It was absolutely delicious, and even the anpan wasn't bad! The best bit was that we got to take a pizza, six anpan and a ham roll home for dinner! Tom was pleased.
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12/12/03 |
Dinner at Chiaki-san's house
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12/12/03 - 13/12/03 |
Winter Seminar at Fukui Shougyo Senior High School (Jose and Hanna's school)
ALTs and students alike - all had a wonderful time! For the course of two days, Tom was an honorary ALT, and got to join in the fun.
If you took part in the seminar and want photos or film clips (I got films of the dancing) e-mail me, and I'll send them to you (I have more photos of each group - so let me know which planet you were from!)
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14/12/03 |
Party at Kyomi's
After manically flying up to the Echizen Bamboo Doll Village with Jose, Christina and Tom to get some last minute Christmas presents, I dropped off the gang and went to pick Brandon up. We headed off to Kyomi's house for a Christmas party. Yet again, Brandon and I had misunderstood the invitation - believe the statement "the party's from 12 till 6" meant "drop by between 12 and 6". Kyomi and Nagisa had laid on a full Christmas meal - turkey and all the trimmings. Happily, we were in time for some delicious cheese cake, and did get to see some of the yosakoi crowd!
We owe a huge thank you to Kyomi and Nagisa for making us welcome even though we were horribly late!
Messiah Concert
I had to give the concert a miss as I was at Kyomi's, but Tom went along. I hear it was very good.
Meal at Atom Boy for Teresa's Birthday
Tom, Brandon, Kara, Mary, Me, Teresa and one of her JTEs all went out for sushi to celebrate Teresa's birthday. This was maybe the last time I'll see some of the crowd before the new year! ~sniff~
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15/12/03 - 16/12/03 |
Making Christmas cake with the teachers at Haruko
A means to amuse ourselves while there are no lessons on, and not many kids about, in the afternoons this week. Last week was filled with exams for the students, and this week's pretty quiet.
Well, I had loads of help from the students in the cookery club, but the result is very tasty, and looks quite good, too! Annoyingly, I forgot my camera when we were making them, but I took some photos when I got home...
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16/12/03 |
Last meal out before the Christmas Holidays
Most of the ALTs from Fukui are (or have) pushed-off for Xmas, leaving Tom and I shivering and alone. Ok, not really...and my parents are coming over really soon (Hurray!). Anyway, a few of us went out for a final goodbye meal.
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18/12/03 |
Making a REAL Christmas cake in Japan
(I'm going to admit it here...I had two attempts, and the first failed miserably! KE-KI (cake) FLOUR IS NOT SELF-RAISING! although the resultant "Christmas Biscuit" is being enthusiastically devoured by a hungry Tom!)
Cooking, and baking especially, is not easy in Japan. First you have the problem of not being able to read the labels on anything, with the added problem of not actually being able to buy all the ingredients you need. Then there's the oven...
Tom and I had great fun trying to make a real, more-or-less traditional Christmas cake (it's got rum, brandy and loadsa fruit and nuts in it). See the picture-diary of our antics!
Haruko Teacher's Room
All the teachers were in a meeting, so I took the opportunity to take some photos!
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19/12/03 |
SNOW
Yup, it's snowing. After about a week of thunderstorms and loads of hail, it's finally snowing. And BOY, is it SNOWING!
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20/12/03 |
MORE SNOW
Looked out of the window at 3am to see about 3 inches of snow! Went for a long walk...
See the photos of snow during the day
Meal at Tamami's friend's house
Rhen, Tom and I went for a meal with some of our Japanese friends at one of their houses. It was great fun, the food was delicious, and the alcohol was flowing. We played quite a few drinking games which were very funny, and staggered home very late (early!).
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21/12/03 |
Mum's arrival
Tom and I got the train down to Kansai International Airport to meet Mum off her flight. Admittedly we nearly missed the train due to the alcohol consumption last night! But we made it, met up with Mum and headed back up to Fukui. We had "Mixed Sand" (mixed sandwiches) for dinner at the hotel, then all crashed out!
See the photos of the journey to Kansai Airport
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22/12/03 |
School Closing Ceremony
Last day of school...yeah! Mum and Tom visited,, and we watched some of the closing ceremony, then sneaked (snuck?) out and I gave them a tour of the school. They met a few students, several teachers, and had a long chat with the kocho-sensei (the Principal).
We went to Pario for lunch (gyoza, soup and rice) (after Mum had done some shopping at the 100 yen store!). We had a bit of a doze, then headed out for dinner - Okonomiyaki! Yum! Mum has given okonomiyaki the OK for Dad coming over!
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23/12/03 |
Eiheiji Temple in the Snow
While Tom was busy shopping and working, Mum and I went on a jolly to Eiheiji temple. Although most of the snow has now melted in Fukui city, the mountains around Eiheiji are still covered in it. The temple has its winter defences up (plastic sheets and bamboo screens)...but apart from that, it looks as beautiful as ever.
We drove the long way back along the Eiheiji toll road, which sported some stunning views of the surrounding countryside in the snow! We then went shopping at Copa, where we had lunch, then pottered home for a quick change (and to meet up with Tom), then...
Hayashi's (Owner of the apartment) Christmas Party
We were honoured to be invited to Hayashi-san's home, and enjoyed a Christmas party with most of his family! (We were the only non-family members present). There was a wonderful spread of roast chicken, potatoes, sushi, Japanese style fried chicken, KFC, sandwiches, salad, bread, cheese, strawberries, kon-kuremu (cream of sweetcorn) soup, Japanese-style Christmas cake (cream sponge with fruit), wine, champagne, sake, beer, water, more wine. Hayashi-san's wife also entertained us with a Christmas carol piano recital, and we joined in singing round the grand piano!
It was a really great party, and we've even been invited back in the new year! We're very much looking forward to it.
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24/12/03 |
~~~~~Christmas Eve~~~~~
Echizen Bamboo Doll Village
While Tom rushed off to do some last minute shopping, Mum and I went to the Bamboo doll village to watch them make the beautiful figures, and to get some souvenirs!
We drove a long way back through the mountains and along a river - it was very foggy in parts, but the view was stunning!
Sushi lunch
We met Tom for lunch, and went for conveyor-belt sushi. It's not big chunks of raw fish as many assume. To be honest you can have a very good feed without touching the tiniest slither of raw fish (although Mum did try a little corner). Her favourite was a fried gamber with rice, but she also enjoyed (amongst other things) crab on rice and a kind of coleslaw with prawns wrapped in seaweed.
Relaxing afternoon
With tea and proper Christmas cake...yum!
O-taiko
After dropping Mum off at the hotel, I went along to one of Tom's taiko drumming classes. It was great fun, although I was terrible at it...I can vouch for the fact that Tom's getting pretty good now...!
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25/12/03 |
~~~~~Christmas Day~~~~~
Opened presents, drank some Kir Royal, had a bit of a lazy morning then got a taxi to Saint Marc (posh western-style restaurant). We had a wonderful meal there (just ask Tom about the buns...we lost count at 9) with plenty more alcohol, then walked to International Club 2 and dropped in on Yoshi for a cup of green tea.
We then walked on to a local-line train station, and caught the train to near home. Staggered the short(ish) distance home, opened another bottle of wine, ate some nuts and crisps, and watched a DVD of Sabrina (Audrey Hepburn)...
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26/12/03 |
~~~~~Boxing Day~~~~~ Mum and I did some shopping down Eki Mae, then met up with Tom for brunch. After brunch we drove to Imadate to make paper! Espoire (the fab patisserie) was shut, so we went to a bakery for a cake and coffee... very tasty. See the photos |
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27/12/03 |
Still snowing today! Mum, Tom and I went on an expedition (through some minor snow storms) up to Maruoka Town and went to the castle there. It was extremely cold (especially taking our shoes off), but the view was beautiful and the castle very interesting. Mum had great fun leaping up and down the very steep steps! See the photos For dinner we went to the Korean restaurant by Daibutsu-mae (Sanzenri), and ate and drank too much again! (Although Tom didn't drink as he was designated driver). |
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28/12/03 |
Mum, Tom and I were lucky enough to be able to join the International Club making mochi (pounded rice cakes). Unfortunately, we also had to eat some mochi, which really isn't any of our cups of tea! It was a really interesting event, however, and we got to meet the Mayor, Governor of Fukui Prefecture, and a member of the Diet, amongst other dignitaries.
After a lovely lunch at an Italian restaurant, we had a relaxing afternoon and evening. Mum and I watched another DVD!
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29/12/03 |
Went for a long drive with Mum and Tom down the Echizen coast, and enjoyed a delicious (and famous) Echizen crab! The scenery was beautiful!
In the evening I made mince pies with some hideously expensive mince-meat I ordered from England...they were very tasty though!
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30/12/03 |
Dad's Arrival!
We told Dad that only Tom was going down to meet him at Kansai airport, but in actual fact Mum, Tom and I got in my little yellow-plate and for the second time I drove down to the airport in Osaka! It took five hours to get down there, but was well worth it to see my daddy!!!
Unfortunately it was another five hour drive back again, but this time I had Tom to help out! He drove most of the way back while the rest of us slept!
Dinner was at the Washington Hotel, with all of us together - Mixed Pizza...yum!
Oh...and I got my fantastic old Cannon camera back - special delivery from Jersey. Thanx Dad!!!
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31/12/03 |
~~~~~New Year's Eve~~~~~
In the morning, Mum and Dad came over to the apartment and we had a second Christmas - exchanging presents and eating Christmas cake and mince pies! We left room for okonomiyaki for lunch, though!
In the evening we held an impromptu party at my apartment, going on to the shrine next to the Washington Hotel soon after midnight to enjoy the festivities there. Thanks to all who came! My family, Tom and I had a great time - I hope you did too!
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