Hello everyone!
I just got back from a long walk to Namba in search of an English bookstore. Today’s my day off, so I wanted to get some exercise and check out this bookstore that I'd heard about. After roaming around one of the busiest parts of the city for a few hours, I couldn’t find it, so I gave up, went grocery shopping, and took the subway home. Besides, blogging is way better than reading a book!
Scott and I have officially been in Japan for a month now and although there have been several things to adjust to, we feel like they’re becoming easier as the days pass. We’re slowly starting to get our schedules for work and know our way around the city like natives—it sure doesn’t take long to get used to when you commute every day! We both had good first weeks of work too—despite some problem children. If anyone thinks all Japanese children are well-behaved, you are so incredibly wrong.
To celebrate our new beginnings, we went out with Colin, Laura, and Marcus on Saturday night to a district in central Osaka called Shinsaibashi, which is basically a great spot for shopping and evening entertainment. There are many American, Australian, and Canadian bars too. We’d all been talking to other teachers we work with and they had several bar recommendations for us...so we decided to try one out! We ended up at a bar called “Scorpion” which is a tiny Western bar that plays English music and has many kinds of international beer. They even let their guests pick the songs they want to hear from the computer and let me tell you—Scott was pretty much in heaven! After a night of good company and festivities, we walked home (a whole 45 minutes) because the subways stop running around 12 am.
On Sunday, Scott and I went searching for Hallowe’en costumes. Believe it or not, Hallowe’en is a popular occasion here and stores began displaying their Hallowe’en paraphernalia shortly after we landed in Japan. The first time we saw it we kind of had to look twice, as it doesn’t really seem particularly Japanese. Anyway, everyone loves dressing up here and going to parties. Unfortunately, there’s no trick-or-treating, but I’ve heard it’s a tradition for the “gaijins” like us to ride the train loop line in Osaka and drink (yep...completely legal). I’ll keep you posted about our Hallowe’en plans. For work, we have to dress up because it’s part of “Western culture and traditions” according to our company. So, I’m going to be a cat and Scott’s going to be Dracula. The costume selection was somewhat limited—even at the giant department store we went to! I’m looking forward to seeing all our students dress up too—it’ll be so cute!
Sunday evening was especially exciting for me because I had arranged to meet one of my students, Tomoko, from the Queen’s School of English. She came to Canada in August to study at the School with her university for a month. I’ve been keeping in touch with some of the students who live in Osaka and I’ll actually be seeing all of them at their university’s festival in November. Anyway, it was really great to see a familiar face. Scott and I went to dinner at the restaurant she works at just a few train stops from our apartment. The food was absolutely amazing and she treated us like royalty—complete with a visit to the restaurant’s kitchen!
Well, I hope everything’s fine back home! We miss you and we’d LOVE to hear from you!
Take care!
Jo & Scott
No comments:
Post a Comment