HIDDEN DEPTHS

I didn't take this photo.

THE FUN BEGINS

Well the test is over. It was really hard and I may have failed abismally, but I'm glad I did it and even more glad it's over. And as if the big man upstairs is saying 'well done Mark', it's been snowing all morning. Here's a snap from the Community Centre window. I'll be on the slopes from Sunday.

WING MIRROR

Driving to my tutors

Rush hour traffic

Found a use for my wing mirror

FROSTY

Ice on my windscreen this morning

Just a wee bit, but it's got me excited

Snow's on the way

MELLOW CELLO

I've been listening to a lot of cello music recently. Yoyo Ma, Elgar, Damien Rice, etc.

I don't know why, but it seems to help when I'm studying.

Cello; great for drowning out the voices in your head :o)

RIVER OF LEAVES

A photo by Junko

HELLO SLOVAKIA

I was talking to one of my brothers at the weekend. He started talking about the love of his life, a very beautiful girl from Slovakia. He talked and talked and talked. Oh, she sounds amazing. Anyway, as it turns out, apparently this beautiful and amazing girl and all her friends in Slovakia are very interested in Japan. And so they've been checking out this blog. Wow, I'm so pleased. It's now an international blog.

So I want to say hello to all you cool Slovakians. Glad you like the blog, and I hope you can understand my bad English.

COOKING CLASS

Recently I started going to a Japanese class on friday nights. I thought it would help my motivation, but it hasn't. Rather, I think I'd learn much more studying alone in my apartment. The class is full of Chinese and Filipino ladies who came here when they married Japanese men. Most of the class seems to be spent gossiping in Chinese. I'm learning more Chinese than Japanese, but to be honest it's all starting to merge into one big 'I don't know what the f*** is going on anymore!!'

But I keep going because it's kind of fun and there are some other cool ALTs that go. Last week, instead of our usual intensive study routine (haha) we learned how to make Japanese curry, in Japanese. This was a whole lot of fun. I wore my sexy apron to impress all the mothers and make the kids cry, and was sucessful on both accounts. Despite my participation the curry turned out really good and the night was a lot of fun.

BAKED POTATO PARTY

Japan is a seasonal country. The Japanese people are very proud to have four seasons and when I first arrived here I was amazed at (and eventually sick of) how many times people proudly told me, "Japan has four seasons, how many does your country have?" But I've live through all four now and can completely understand why they are so proud. This place changes drastically and beautifully. With amazing leaf colours in autumn, tonnes of snow in winter, cherry blossoms in spring and sunny days mixed with typhoons and terrential downpours in summer. It blows me away.

Anyway, I'm waffling. Back to the point. I went to the Community Centre on Saturday morning ot hang out with my Elementary School kids. They had a yaki-imo party. A great autumnal idea to use up the dead leaves lying everywhere and eat some delicious new sweet potatoes. The staff made a little bonfire. While the cinders were getting nice and hot, each student wrapped his or her own sweet potato. First in wet newspaper and then in tin-foil. Next all the spuds are put in with the hot cinders. Then a bunch of leaves are piled on top and left to burn slowly while the kids play games.

After about an hour of agonising waiting (I didn(t have breakfast), the spuds are taken out and leaft to cool on the grass for a while. Then everyone got a little carton of green tea and a potato. They were delicous. Absolutely, mouth-wateringly, scrumdidlyuptiously delicious. If you know what I mean.

Oh, and sorry, I didn't get a photo of the final product. I was too busy stuffing myself.

CANVAS SKY

Yesterday was a public holiday in Japan. It was also Thanksgiving Day for all those Americans. I headed south to see some friends and eat a bunch o good food. There was even turkey and cranberry sauce so I was a happy chappy. As I was driving the sun was setting below the mountains. There’s no daylight savings over here so by 4 o`clock the colours were already spectacular. I pulled over and took a couple of snaps. Needless to say, neither my camera nor my skills can do justice to what I saw, but it was really beautiful to see such a picture above me as I drove on a long boring grey road. It literally looked like a painting.