Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, enjoy your festive season and all that!!

From a South African in Japan (soon to be headed out to Thailand!! Wheeeeeeee!!). Stay safe this holiday. Happy travels to those of you leaving the country. Enjoy the snow to those of you staying. And to those of you back home, South Africa always rocks this time of year, so I KNOW you'll all be having a great time!

Love ya all!!

Natasha

(Image by Mary Coombes! A cute Christmas card she made and sent to me! Santa hanging ten in Souf Efrica)

Jaws

Now as many of you know, I absolutely love great white sharks!! So I was absolutely thrilled to get this little stuffed toy from Mary C back in SA!! Check out those teeth (lmao - they look like dentures don't they?!)... isn't it the cutest thing ever?!!
Thanks Mary, m'angel!

Love ya lots!

Putting my songwriting skills to the test

(Dedicated to my co-travellers: Johanna, Ros, Joel and Angela)
In honour of the recent snow, I have re-written the following ditty to suit my mood (sung to the tune of Let it snow!):

Oh the weather outside is frightful
and nothing about it's delightful
and I really wish I could just go
I hate snow! I hate snow! I hate snow!

It doesn't show signs of stopping
Yes the temp'rature's stead'ly dropping
And I'm feeling kinda low
I hate snow! I hate snow! I hate snow!

When I finally catch my flight
How I'll love gett'ng 'way from the storm!
And my heart will fill with delight
When I'm in a bikini and oh-so warm

Oh how I look f'ward to flying
all the way out to Thailand
and I can hardly wait to go
For I hate snow! I hate snow! I hate snow!!!

There ya go... from me to you!

Hugs

Natasha

Watch out for the pesky norovirus

It's rife in our schools... So I've written the following advisory in the interests of Public Health (no applause necessary):

Symptoms include:

diarrhea
vomiting
fever
and an all-round feeling of ickiness!

Preventative Measures

Stay away from students. They're crawling with germs. Avoid them at all costs!!!!!
If you cannot avoid contact with students, be sure to wear a biohazard suit, mask and gloves.
If you have no access to the aforementioned, scrub yourself thoroughly with a bristle brush (the type used to clean floors) and industrial strength soap.
If you find yourself unable to lay your hands on industrial strength soap, use Dove, Lux or whatever just for GOD'S SAKE, be sure it's real soap!!! Those alcohol wipey things don't work!
If you have no way of obtaining soap, you're a dirty bastard and deserve to puke your guts up!
Oh and try not to touch door handles, pens, pencils, desks, chairs, etc etc

If you some reason the preventative measures don't work:

Stay indoors
Lock your doors
Close your curtains and be damned sure you don't give it to the rest of us!

That said: hasn't the weather been fucked up lately?! Dude, the other day I saw a daddy long legs, just yesterday I saw a ladybug and today I notice buds on one of the trees outside of my school! This global warming thing is really taking effect now, huh?!

Cheerio

N

The ribbon says it all...

World AIDS Day

Someone up there hates me...

...and it's God, I tell ya! God! Why else would it RAIN on me every single day while I valiantly battle my way to school on a bicycle (and then - rubbing salt in the wound - it stops seconds after I get indoors! Leaving me soaked to the bone and FUMING!!)?! Okay, maybe it's not God... but it's someone pretty close to him... his evil henchwoman, Mother Nature perhaps?! She's got PMS and she's taking it out on ME!!! This puts me in a terribly grim mood!

Bring on the snow, at least then I can walk everywhere and not get soaked (I'll slip and fall a lot... and probably blame God or Mother Nature for that too... but then I am a natural whinger! Surely, you must have picked up on that by now?)!!!

Rain sucks...

The end.

Bento

Hah!! Am sooooooo proud of myself because I've FINALLY gone and made my very own bento... looks really Japanese, doesn't it?! I've even gone and bought a complete lunch box set (okay from the Y100 shop), with a little baggie and everything!! Oooh and matching chopsticks!! I'm just turning Japanese, aren't I?! Note the little cherry tomatoes, I added them in as a little in-joke to myself...

A new Fidel pic

From Nathan... Ag hene man!!! Sooooooo oulik...

My fave pics of the week

A karaoke fave of mine - for obvious reasons!

Johannesburg, South Africa - torrential summer rains strike again!!!

No guts

I'm seriously shit scared of having my impacted wisdom tooth removed over here! I've been kind of lacking in the backbone area for the last year or so and I pay for it everytime it gets infected! Am in major pain over here and so not even considering the option of going to the dentist!

I mean, come on, this is the same country where they wanted to stick a whiplike, camera thingie down my nostril just to confirm whether or not I had a throat infection! And no way would I even think about going to the dentist for a surgical procedure in a country where they have a tendency to give you the mildest type of medication for most ailments! I really have these dire visions of having my tooth removed with only a mild aspirin for pain relief. Sorry, but my faith was tested after the nasal probe business and then completely shattered with the rash of misdiagnosed malaria incidents we had over the last year and a half!

So now here I sit, with a swollen right cheek, a jaw that's painful to the touch, an aching ear, difficulty eating (yayyyyy good for the diet) and a terrible headache, all as a result of this stupid impacted wisdom tooth. Siiiiighhhhhh! I take solace in the fact that the infections never last.

More M&E

It's fabulous that we now have a South Africa in which the kids don't know what the f#ck Apartheid is!

Autumn comes to Niigata

Autumn is definitely one of the prettier seasons... and this one has been particularly nice because we haven't gone from summer to an instant Ice Age (as in the past two years), instead it's been a relatively painless transition, which I am totally thankful for. In fact it's been nice and mild, with a bit of a bite to the morning and evenings. Okay, here endeth the weather report. Below are some pics I took over the past two weeks. This post is mostly for those of you who left Japan a few months ago (you KNOW who you are - okay we ALL know who you are!). Just thought you'd be missing Fall in Japan! Hugs

This poor cherry blossom tree got its seasons mixed up!

(just goes to show what mild Autumn it's been)

Bonsai maple tree at an eki

See the face in the sky?! Just a day before a HUGE storm in Niigata
Something wicked this way comes! Mwauhuhahuahauha!!

I caught these three dudes sunning themselves the other day

One of them, up close and personalThe persimmons are out in full force

As are the cosmos!

Wild Roses

My neighbour's garden

Oh yes it's Ladies' Night...

A couple of pics that were taken a while ago, on Ros, Johanna and my Ladies' Night Out. They're just so cute, I had to post them...

It's been awhile

... since I've gone and fucked things up, just like I always do! And it's been awhile but all that shit seems to disappear when I'm with you!!

Aaaaaah one of my fave karaoke songs!! Awww just one of my fave songs... The title of this post just brought the song to mind!

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while, I been busy man! I have loads of pics... A couple of weeks ago Anna had a housewarming party, but loads of other people have pics of that on their blogs, so I won't add any (check Justine or Johanna's blogs for those). Anyway it's been an interesting couple of weeks... some of our PNG guides came to Japan to perform, which was cool! We took them out drinking and to karaoke! Also had rehearsals in Sanjo, which was also cool. Anyway, here are some pics...

Sanjo Rehearsal Weekend
Friday Night with the PNG Guys




Saturday Night
Can you tell Ashleigh from me?! Fairly easy to tell Johanna apart. Though God knows what she's doing!!



















Testing Joel's Stubble

Deccy's Director Face
Pamela and me (aaaawwwwww)I nicked this one off of Johanna's blog! It's hilarious!!
Giving it our all...All of us (again courtesyof Johanna)The morning after - in my crowded aparto
Deccy and Pat turning my bra into a catapult and my toy dog
into a projectile (childish much?!)
Joel and his girlfriend

A moment of silence please...

As I contemplate the short, joyless lives of my ten goldfish.

Some Sanjo pics

I took these (while out cycling) a couple of Fridays ago before they cut down all the rice!

Self -portrait