Chez Natasha's... uh Take Three!

So, here it is, my third apartment in three years. After three different apartments, I know exactly how I want things. I changed things rather a lot in here, so it looks quite different. You've all seen pics of my old aparto in Niitsu (if you haven't check the archives for my Bye Bye Niitsu entry), so am sure you're seeing PLENTY of similarities in decor (I pretty much just transplanted my old flat - furniture, curtains, niknaks and all - into my new flat)... So now it feels like home! Yayyyyyyyyy!!

Entrance

I still wanna put pics up in this hall. I hate empty wall space!!

Bathroom

Bedroom - I moved my bedroom from the other room! I prefer it here, it gets more sun.

Kitchen - moved the table against the wall to make more room for my desk.

Living room

Desk

Student English Camp

Student English Camp flag raising ceremony (at 6 in the MORNING!!!). After this we did aerobics (grimace).

Pic of the weekend

One of the many dragonflies that can be found all over Niigata lately! This pic was taken at the student English Camp last week.

New Glasses. Yayyyyy!

6 months after breaking my glasses, I have FINALLY gotten around to replacing them! Good thing too, my poor eyes were getting sick of nothing but contacts!

Noh! Noh! Noh!

Rosalind, Johanna and I went to check the Japanese-ified version of Othello at the Noh theatre in Niigata last Tuesday! A couple of students from the Niigata Women's college where we (female ALTs) sometimes go for English day, were a part of the company performing the play. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm grateful I know the story, else I would have been a bit lost, but it was a visual treat and I was pretty excited about being there!!

Johanna has a MUCH better reportback on her blog! So have a read through, I'm being typically lazy - but there ya go!

Hugs
PS. The dude playing Iago (centre pic on the right) was brilliant and Othello was totally sexy (top pic on the right)!
PPS. First pic shamelessly stolen from Hanna's blog!

Better late than never

To those of you who have been going on and on about it, here's that Sado post!! I know none of you are particularly interested in anything I have to SAY about Sado and that you all just wanna see if you feature in my pics! Yeah, I saw right through all of that.

But for the peeps back home!! We had the Sado Earth Celebration two weeks ago!! It rocked man, it was so bohemian and laidback. Amazingly enough I stayed sober enough to enjoy the experience, a first... maybe I'm finally growing up or something(GASP)!? The guest performers Tamango's Urban Tap, were fabulous! Have a look at the link... everybody was perving over Tamango himself. Dude has a nice butt, ask anyone! I thoroughly enjoyed it!

We camped on the beach, had a bonfire and went skinny-dipping (okay, not quite)! The toilets freaked me out, cos there were bugs EVERYWHERE!! HUGE, UGLY, CREEPY THINGS WITH LONG LEGS AND BEADY EYES (shudder)... I didn't much like that.

Anyway, enough waffling on about nothing at all, this is a bad and boring post, so I'll stop torturing y'all and post some pics ("finally" I hear some of you breathe in relief).

Pamela on the Ferry

On the Ferry
Having a smoke

Arriving in Ogi

One of those tub boat things (I forgot what it's called!! Sheesh)

Doing cute

Some kids and their dad (don't know them)

Consuming alcohol by the bottle (ick)

Anonymous Arses (kind of)

A visitor

A suitably creepy pic of Sam in an unexpected Sweden T-shirt (WTF?)

Ros - doing a little dance

Pop - Fidel's new Japanese Girlfriend

A stall in the market place

Pamela's new hat

Deccy having a snooze

Shanna sleeping off her hangover

Emma and Ros

Eccentric hippy dude

This dude was flying alongside the ferry on the way back - shamelessly begging for food!

Sunset

Happy Spring Day!!

To those of you back home, you've had a pretty crappy winter, what with snow (weird), power failures and floods, but things will get better now, you lucky sods!!

Happy Spring Day!!!

Starry, starry night

Man, I wish I could write good (sic)... that way I could tell you all about the nice bike ride I just had. But I fear once I start, I'll end up sounding like those Jet Journal people... and as I've just finished reading said Journal, I now know what Kat was on about. It's pretty grim, man.

Anyway, as I can't possibly describe it to you, I'll just keep it short. It's 11:37 on a Friday night... I opted for a quiet one but by about 9:30ish, I started feeling cabin fevery and hopped onto my bike for a quick sojourn to the video store. It's getting a bit chilly at night (sob), but it was rather pleasant, so I took the long route back, through the rice fields, with the crickets chirping and the massive, clear, star-studded sky dominating all else.

It was nice, kinda peaceful. It felt like there was just me, the road below, a strip of horizon ahead and the big, beautiful and benevolent night sky up above. I think I'll do it again sometime.

Now, I think I'll go and watch some mindless drivel!!

Cheers

Tony Yengeni goes to jail!!!

Another corrupt politician goes to prison! Yayyyyyyy...