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...

Bleh de bleh de bleh

BLEH!!!

That's how I feel today... bored out of my mind and wondering why time has slowed down to a painstaking crawl. Surely it was twelve o clock 5 hours ago?! But I look up and ICK, it's only 12:15 now... HOW the hell is this possible?! The clock's on summer vacation time, sighhhhhh!

This sucks.

Cheers

Yamagata-ken

When Pam and Deccy asked if I wanted to join them on a road trip to Yamagata-ken it quite honestly did not take too much persuasion to get me to say yes... I would have been doing nothing otherwise. So we headed out from my place - the day after Ros's bday party - fairly early in the morning. SOME people (who will remain nameless, right Rosalind?) almost physically shuddered at the thought of Pam, Deccy and me in a car together, thinking that there would constant chatter and brutal vying for "talk" time between Pam and me, for the duration of the trip... I must say, that even though our journey to Yamagata took (slightly - ahem) longer than anticipated, it was a totally cool roadtrip! Good conversation and about 7 hours of worth of 6 Degrees of Separation, which kept us sane and - surprisingly enough - quiet, as we contemplated how nantaka actor was connected to nantaka actress/actor within six movies or less... well we had to be quiet because Deccy got all twitchy every time Pamela and I deliberated out loud and disturbed his thought processes.

Yamagata itself is pretty enough, we stayed at a campsite close to Zao onsen (uh... is that Zao onsen campsite then?! I can't remember the name of the place), I only remember that reality for me set in then, as I realised that we would be CAMPING (I'd known it all along, but it didn't seem real to me until it got dark and Deccy started talking about pitching the tent), in the WOODS and that there would be spiders everywhere, but that we would not even be able to see them in the dark! Now, those of you who know me, know that I have a serious case of arachnophobia! I can't stand the hairy, 8-legged, bastards! Big (and they generally are HUGE in Japan), small, skinny, fat, they're all worth a screech if they come within a metre of me! Unfortunately, once I let on that I was afraid of spiders (okay, it was fairly obvious by the way I jumped and screamed everytime something brushed against me), Deccy and Pam started acting like total kids by going "SPIDER!" at random times, just to see me panic! Normal people out there are probably thinking it's a cruel thing to do... as a fellow normal person, I concur - it was a bastarding thing to do! Sighhhhhh... Creepy spiders aside, after pitching the tent we drove into Yamagata-shi in search of some nightlife. We went to sober (GASP) karaoke (I know many of you are wondering what the fuck sober karaoke is... it can be done guys and it can be as much fun as fall-down drunk karaoke)... The following morning we went to Lina Land, a theme park that should be called "Kitty-chan Land" it was so filled with Kitty paraphernalia. The trip back to Niigata was much shorter than the trip to Yamagata which is a good thing, cos we were pretty knackered by the end of it all! I had a great time... but I kept thinking in an Irish accent for 24 hours after that (bizarre)...

Piccies for your pleasure...

The Paparazzi Shot

Bringing out the frustrated musician in me

The following bizarre pics were taken in the morning at the campsite - while Deccy was asleep on the floor of the handicapped toilet (it was too hot in the tent)

Deccy's "what the fuck are you just sitting there for?" glare, as they battle to fold the tent (I was documenting the process for posterity)

Lina Land (aka Rina Rand-o)

The Japanese peace sign (don't you smile for the camera! Don't you dare!)Aghast at the thought of going on the tumble-dryer ride

My new friends, Jim and Bob

Ros's beach party!! Yayyyy!!

A happy, belated birthday to the lovely, sweet, entirely lovable Ms Arrowsmith-Brown. To celebrate we all gathered on Maze beach close to Iwamuro (Phil B's stomping ground) and had a grand old time, braaing (thanks Phil), swimming and just mucking about and having fun!! The birthday girl and Pamela (who never wants to be left out of these things), were stung by jellyfish and a random shark scared the bejesus out of all of us, causing a panicked mass exodus from the water (okay, not really, but a shark-induced panic sounds so much cooler than a jellyfish-induced one... in truth, someone said that there were jellyfish in the water and people went scurrying for shore).

Once more again(as some of my JTEs are fond of saying): "Happy Belated Birthday Rosalind m'love!"

Some pics now:

Ros and Jenny in the water (pic nicked from Phil B - cheers mate)

Ros, Kristen and me

Cast Adrift (pic courtesy of Phil B - again)

A hug from the birthday girl

Joey contemplates the stunning sunset over the Japan Sea

Sam looking a bit dodgy

Pam and Deccy

James, Phil and Pam

The newbies...

...are nice.

So there

Seeing as how my friends from home NEVER check this blog, I feel I am able to quite comprehensively slam them and get away with it!! That will teach them to neglect me!

So here we go, in no particular order:

Bad friend No 1:
Garth K - He NEVER emails! You suck Garth!

Bad friend No 2:
Keith Z - he NEVER emails either! And when I email he complains that it's too long!! You suck too Keith!

Bad friend No 3:
Chevon E - She never emails, never calls, never writes and blames work for it. Well hell, Chevon... if I didn't love you so much I would never speak to you again!

Bad friend No 4:
Bob the Babe - never calls, never emails, never writes, not so much as a smoke signal. He's just lazy, I think! Sighhhhhhhh... if it wasn't for the fact that he GENUINELY wants me to find a bloke and get laid (his words, not mine), I'd probably never speak to him again either!

Bad friend No 5:
Screwy Louey - an occasional emailer, a serial joke forwarder (this to her qualifies as genuine communication), this chickie bird, like Chevs, is like a sister to me, she too, cites work as an excuse!! Never knew it would take such a chunk out of their day to drop a "hey how are you" email my way! Although in fairness, Lorinda is a damned sight better on the communication front than the rest!!

Bad friend No 6:
Jane S - Lord, it's been so long, I doubt she even remembers my name anymore!! Not a word in a year... shame on you, Jane!!!

Bad friend No 7:
Annie B - well okay she doesn't qualify! Having no access to email and all that! Love ya, sweets!

And as I will get ZERO response at all to this post, that qualifies as proof that they don't even drop in to check the blog that I, so lovingly, set up for THEM (so that they could always know what's going on with me!).

Nice one, guys!! Really nice!!

Love

Natasha

Atsui atsui!! FCKN ATSUI!!!!

I don't mind the heat so much... it's the humidity that's killing me! I can't breathe!! I HATE this... why can't we have nice hot weather, without the suffocating humidity?! And if ONE more person tells me, "you're from South Africa, you must be used to the heat!", I'm gonna effing SCREAM... yes I'm used to the heat, but in South Africa we don't have to deal with the heavy, moist air! It feels like a thick, wet blanket has been draped over my head.
I love the little Niigata weather sidebar thingie on m'blog(over there ^<-)... it gives you up to the second temp changes... 37 degrees C (today's temp) + 1000% humidity does not a happy me make. Yeah I definitely prefer hot weather over cold (yuck, snow), but enough with the humidity already!! I'm ready to start a campaign petitioning the Japanese government to slash the humidity by at least three quarters! If anyone is interested in this petition, please give me a buzz!

Cheers

N

So random

Umbrellas- Kamo June 2006

Something genkier

Nagaoka fireworks were totally cool as always!! Joyce, Mary and I all wore yukatas!! That's the yukata my Niitsu students gave me!! It's so pretty!! Ooooooooooh and it's so weird!! Natsumi is back... I remember bawling my eyes out, when I had to say goodbye to him at the Nags fireworks last year, so it was like coming full circle saying "hello" at the same event, exactly a year later! Looks like he'll be staying in Tokyo for a while! Yayyyyyy... welcome back, Nat!!

Some pics...

Gonna miss you, Karl

Joycie and Pat (who seemed to spend as much time as possible together over the last few weeks)!

Pat and me

Nat and me

Mary and Mary, doing some weird Mary dance
All of us

Another Goodbye

These goodbyes never seem to end!! And they get more and more ouchy, every time someone leaves! This time it's a double whammy... Joyce and Mary both left for Tokyo on Thursday night! Joyce flies home tomorrow and Mary on Tuesday! It was particularly bad, because Mary had been staying with me since last Tuesday! I mean my entire time in this flat has been shared with her... she helped me clean, unpack, decorate, everything... she was a HUGE help to me, but aside from that, you all know that she's, like, one of my best friends - practically my sister, man!! I'm going to miss her SO much.

As I will Joycie, who always makes me laugh and has one of the most generous hearts I know.

Thank you both, for making the last two years so much fun! Happy travelling, Mary! Good luck with the studies, Joyce!

You both are angels and I'm going to be totally lonely without you!!

Love

Natasha

Sighhhhhhh

Hey there... so I've moved and it's taken me ages to get settled in because I've had JTE seminars for the last two weeks!! But my Internet is back up... so here I am again!! YAYYYYY!!!
This post is not about the move, my subsequent lack of basic utilities (like electricity and gas) or my new school, it's about the closing ceremony at Niitsu High last Monday... will delve into the rest later!

I prepared a farewell speech in Japanese for the teachers and kids - telling them how truly great they all are and when I got to how indebted I am to the teachers (a bunch of whom helped me pack, clean my flat and move), how unique the students are and how much I would miss everybody I started bawling! I was so choked up, I could barely finish... but finish I did and I got a sincere, warm round of applause from the 1000 or so people in gym, I've taught more than half of the students and was on friendly terms with a lot of teachers who were NOT JTEs, so I meant every word I said and it really was wrenching! By the time I got the bouquet from a concerned student who patted my shoulder and told me to cheer up, I was in dire need of tissues! When the students all stood up to part in the middle so that I could pass through them, I was inconsolable and when a whole bunch of third grade girls swamped me as I was walking toward the back of the gym, to give me a yukata that they had all chipped in to buy for me... man, words cannot describe how I was feeling! It was such an emotional, heart-wrenching farewell for me, that I found it hard to comprehend that I wasn't actually LEAVING Japan.

I will miss them all for a long time to come and I will never forget them!