Random

The view from Cindy's apartment!

Takamatsu - the capital city of Kagawa-ken

Cindy - ready for an ill-fated night on the town!

Anne

24 Eyes and the shrine...

So another of Shodoshima's claims to fame is that the movie 24 eyes was filmed there. All about a school teacher who taught the only 12 kids in this little village! Apparently quite a moving flick. Anyway, so we visited the village where it was filmed and everything was kept pretty much the way it was in the movie. Kind of creepy with this music track of little children singing playing over and over and over again! Very interesting...

Movie poster for 24 Eyes

I tried to get the beach in the background of this pic! But it's all blurry! Boo...

A hawk/eagle(?)

We also visited a shrine in a cave! We went in, wrote down our prayers/wishes and had two monks chanting/praying for us! It was a really cool experience, the setting was fabulous and in the back of the temple are these windows so you can see how high up in the mountains you are!

Entrance to the Cave Shrine

These are the windows in the back of the temple

Olive Garden and Soy Sauce Factory

So Shodoshima is famous for two things, soy sauce and olives! The Mediterranean climate is perfect for olive growing and a visit to the Olive Garden was a fantastic opportunity to buy the coolest olive omiyage imaginable!

Not quite at the Olive Garden! This statue is second in size only to the one in Murakami. Niigata wins again!!

The Entrance to the Olive Garden! Everything has a distinctly Greek theme.

These are some recently graduated High School students we were introduced to!

Souf Efrican Chicks! Cindy, Anne and me

Soy Sauce Factory

Anne and Cindy

Shodoshima Angel Road

Angel Road is a stretch of beach connecting three small islands to the larger Shodoshima. It is only accessible during low tide. Cindy and I went at sunset, the light was stunning, the weather was gorgeous and the scenery was amazing!

I really hate...

... any school vacations. It's soooooooooo boring being an ALT when there are no students around to be entertained by unique clownish ways!! Sighhh.

Oh well, at least I had a bit of a minibreak last month. I went to visit my good friend, Cindy, on her little island of Shodoshima in Kagawa ken, which is situated in Shikoku. Gorgeous place. Shodoshima has a lovely Mediterranean climate! The weather is mild enough to grow olives! In fact, that's their "thing". You know that "thing" you have to find that defines any little town in Japan?! Shodoshima is famous for its olives! I visited the Olive Gardens and bought a whole ton of olive products! Some olive chocolates for the staffroom (as you can imagine, that was really well-received! The weirder the omiyage the better. What can I say?! I give kewl omiyage!)...

As I am typing this at school I don't have access to my pics! But rest assured, those will soon follow.

Thousand-Hand Guan Yin

This is so awesome!! Well worth the watch! What makes it even more amazing is that all the women involved are deaf, or have some other hearing impairment.

Awful business this...

So the World Cup that I was so excited about has been marred by the death of the Pakistan cricket coach, Bob Woolmer. He was found unconscious on his hotel room floor the day after Ireland's outstanding defeat of Pakistan. I always loved old Bob, he was one of South Africa's more successful former coaches and he was well-loved and respected by the SA team.

Sadly enough, it now appears he was murdered... I thought it was a bit dodgy him dying so suddenly after that shock defeat! There were a LOT of upset fans out there, and a lot of death threats aimed at both him and some of the Pakistani players! This is terrible... even though the show goes on, this has obviously put a huge damper on the event! And whatever team wins the Cup will have to deal with the knowledge that this World Cup will be remembered more for the murder rather than the winning team!

In related news, South Africa face their nemesis in a group match tomorrow to see which team will enter the quarter finals undefeated and at the top of their group. It's the grudge match of the tournament! I hope my boys kick some Aussie ASS!

Good on ya Ireland...

"Debutants Ireland tied their first ever World Cup match with Zimbabwe in Group D after both teams scored 221 runs on Thursday.

Ireland amassed 221 for nine from their 50 overs before Zimbabwe were all out for the same score following the last delivery of the contest at Sabina Park."

That must've been a great match! Better than the one I got stuck with (Bermuda vs Sri Lanka) which was one-sided as hell! Sri Lanka beat Bermuda by 243 runs. That's more runs than either Ireland or Zim scored in their innings! Not cool... wish I'd had access to the Zim - Ireland match, I knew it would be more closely contested! Crap...

Anyway, nice prelude to St Patrick's Day for the Irish team!! I have to say, I was expecting good things from them after I learned that their coach is South African. Naturally they would do well.

Hahahahahahaha!!

Okay okay...

In the interests of keeping the contents of my blog highly original, I have made the controversial decision (it's controversial only because certain OTHERS are waiting for the pics) NOT to blog about the uniquely Japanese hodare (penis) matsuri (festival) that I attended this weekend. Instead, I'll refer you to some of the other chickie birds I went to the festival with. We shared joyous moments straddled atop a 2.2 metre long penis, being bounced up and down by a bunch of sweaty, heaving men. It was a bonding experience like no other. If you'd like to read about this weird-as-hell festival, as well as see pictures and stuff, do feel free to visit the ever-so-entertaining blogs of Pamela, Johanna and the oh-so lovely Kristen.

Now on to something that interests ME! Mwuahahahahahaha...

I have very cunningly found a way to watch live cricket on the Internet! All it took was ingenuity and uh... a small sum of money! Okay, so it wasn't too cunning and ingenius! I simply bought a cricket World Cup package and can now watch any match I want to online! Well worth it!!! This of course means that I'll be up until 5 in the morning for the really GOOD matches... I watched my first match last night! Not much fun... very predictable! I mean who DIDN'T know that the Aussies were gonna crush Scotland into itty bitty little demoralized pieces?! I should have watched Kenya vs Canada instead! They're slightly more evenly matched... Kenya (2003 shock semi-finalists) won it. Good for them! I'm always happy to see any African teams win! YAYYYY!

Tonight's matches are Sri Lanka vs Bermuda and Zimbabwe vs Ireland! No prizes for guessing who'll win those two matches! I hope Ireland and Bermuda at least put up some kind of fight... unlike the poor Scots!

I'm waiting for SA's opener tomorrow night vs The Netherlands! We SHOULD win that, but we're the team well-known for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory! Hope we do well this world cup, I can't stand the thought of a repeat of 1999... I cried buckets that year. Seriously, if South Africa DON'T win this World Cup my biggest wish is for ANYONE other than Australia to take it! If the Aussies win it again, I'm gonna go on a week long bender to try and wipe the bitter taste out of my mouth!

That said... am sooooooooooo glad the games have begun!

Important dates...

16 March
20 March
24 March

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DAMN I NEED SATELLITE TV!!! I have to watch the cricket world cup!! I can't NOT watch it! It's unheard of for me to miss a cricket world cup!

16 March = SA vs The Netherlands (should be a piece of cake SA - who was recently ranked No 1 in the WORLD!! Hope they put that ranking to good use and win the fecking World Cup for a change!)

20 March = SA vs Scotland (again... should be okay)

But here's the biggie... the one everybody wants to see... 24 March = SA vs Australia!! Cold sweat just thinking about it!

And then, if all goes well! The elimination rounds to follow in April! quarters, semis and finals! I wanna watch the WORLD CUP!!!

Supernatural In The Park

I've just recently started watching Supernatural and must say, am loving the Brothers Winchester! Just found this on youtube... nice Southpark mega mix! My fave bit would be "you get your bitch ass back in the kitchen... and make me some pie!!" Also love Chef's "Hello children" when daddy Winchester sees his boys for the first time in ages. Guess you have to watch Supernatural to get it! But it's still fun to watch!

Cheers

N

The Mistake...

I am at my visit school today... but there was a bit of a mix up. They don't NEED me here today, they're rushed off their feet, kids are writing exams and I'm left (as always) twiddling my thumbs and ducking and diving out of everybody's way, as I do tend to get annoyingly underfoot.

Bleh. I think longingly of my base school and the all the cool stuff I could be doing there today. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

So here I sit...

Graduation ceremony ended in a flurry of tears, photos and goodbyes... now the teachers are God knows where, leaving me: the lonely, lowly ALT sitting in the staffroom, twiddling my thumbs... slowly going out of my mind. I am so bored I could chew off a limb.

God help me.