Kak Attack II

And yet more photos, I went for another bike ride yesterday and let me tell you I am sorely missing owning a bike with gears. This time I went in the opposite direction, away from the town and towards the ocean. Went through some quite industrial areas and in places the footpath was pretty badly maintained but the area near the water was quite nice. On the way back I took a path along the river and that was much nicer. On the waterfront there is a Marine Research Centre with a grassy area that stretches out into the water and of course lots of big boats to look at. Nothing in the way of a beach though.

Looking back towards the Research Centre.

Looking forwards from the Research Centre.

Just thought this was amusing, till the wind started to get stronger :-O

I think this house belongs to a pirate! The security fencing around it was quite impressive and on each wall there was a crest of two crossed swords! I also thought it looked interesting being clad all in what I think must be copper or bronze due to the tarnish.

Here's part of the path along the river, I saw a few signs saying that there are otters living in it but wasn't lucky enough to see one. I did see lots of fish, a turtle and a big heron though.

Another one taken from the river path, this time I thought the sunset looked good.

Kak Attack

I decided to do some exploring in the Kak yesterday since I had a day off and no money to go anywhere else! :P

A cemetary quite near my house, I'm afraid I don't know what the significance of the red blankets is but I thought it looked cool!



A view of the river and surrounding hills. It's a really attractive area and just across the river is a riding stable. I went to visit and met a really nice Canadian woman who rides there, unfortunately she confirmed what I had suspected, riding here is beyond my budget. :(



I can safely say that cycling is most unpopular here... :P The guy on the left is one of the 'parking officers' but a good kind, they don't hand out parking fines they are there purely to organise the bikes. Once you've parked your bike and walked away they come and make sure that it is using the minimum of space and perfectly aligned with all the others. You can just see the rear mud-guard of Big Red poking out in front of the lady's bike.



And speaking of bikes, this is a picture of what I have been terming 'Granny Bikes', this is not the best one I have seen but it's not a bad example, note well the gauntlets and knitted seat cover! Some even have an umbrella attached!



My local temple, Kakurinji, I have seen the signs to it but this was the first time that I had gone to find it (didn't bother before as I never had my camera with me). It's really impressive, lots of buildings and a nice park next to it.

Acquisitions

As requested here is a photo of something blue, my super-cool elephant clock!

I am now the proud owner of furniture, a bike and a mobile phone so it's been an exciting week all told.

Of course the bike is built by Japanese standards so when my co-worker Jason tried to help me make it tall enough he ended up taking the seat right off! :p Easily enough fixed but we had to accept that tall enough wasn't going to happen and we should opt for as tall as possible! The other thing I have noticed about almost all the bikes here are that they are 'girly' (no crossbar) bikes. Having been used to having one with a cross bar (and possibly also influenced by horse riding) I continue to swing my leg out behind in order to mount, I'm sure this looks most peculiar to anyone watching as stepping through the middle is obvioulsy far less effort. And speaking of bikes one of the things I find very quaint here is the parking attendants in the centre of Kakogawa who are there purely for the bicycles! They make sure that they are all lined up neatly and will help people to get their bikes in and out. Still on bicycles, one of the strangest things I have noticed now that I am riding is that although the cars here drive on the correct side of the road (the left) the cyclists all seem to try to pass on the right.

My apartment is now feeling much less like a hotel and more like a home, I have bookshelves and they have books on them! That would probably be enough for me to be perfectly happy with my surroundings but to cap it off I now have a sofa, coffee table and various other furnishings. The built by Japanese standard comes into play here too, the sofa is really quite low to the ground, but then again many things here are, even the toilets seem to require extra lowering... But I won't complain too much about that since I am always grateful of finding a western style one!

My mobile is another exciting development, or at least it will be when I can figure out how to use it! It has a very cool camera, which I quickly came to grips with, and I am pretty sure I can handle making and receiving calls, however all the other funky features such as music require using an installation cd on my pc and naturally enough they are all in Japanese. Will no doubt have to appeal to a friendly native :)

Classes continue to go well and my nerves have eased off a lot. I still have moments where I can't for the life of me remember what is supposed to happen next but I get through them by bluffing and I think I am the only one who can tell. Had my first ever student counselling session on Saturday and managed to get the student to sign up for extra classes so the manager was pleased, apparently that doesn't usually happen on the first try... Hope I haven't set myself an impossible standard to live up to.

As to the students, I really like them, some are naturally more talkative than others and some classes run more smoothly than others but on the whole they seem to be a good bunch. One of my duties is to collect and mark homework books every second week so this was the week for them. Couldn't help but laugh out loud when I came across a dictation passage about homewares in American houses. The student had to write down the description and then guess what the item was and for oven they had written 'We use it to bake things like turkey, bread and KIDS' (cakes)!!! I think it's safe to say some people have a slightly warped perception of other countries' cultures! ;)

Settled in the Kak

Well here it is, my home town for the next year. Yes it's small but it's fully equipped (it has a Mr Donut). My first week was naturally very hectic and I was very glad to reach my weekend (Sunday-Monday) but I did enjoy myself and think I am going to be very happy here.

I taught my first lesson (observed) on Tuesday after observing a couple of the departing teacher's. I thought it went quite well although naturally I was pretty nervous. Apparently I managed to hide it pretty well and I think the students had fun but I was definitely glad to have it over with! I taught another observed lesson on Wednesday, which unfortunately I felt wasn't as good as the one on Tuesday but was assured that I come across as confident so I guess the appearance of confidence is probably more important than actually feeling it. I also observed quite a few more classes.

On Thursday I observed a few more classes and taught two, still with the departing teacher observing. Then on Friday it was my time to fly solo. I actually felt pretty good about the two classes I taught that day and was told that the students had had fun so that was a relief. Saturday was by far the busiest day and I taught five classes. Some ran more smoothly than others but I think they all went off ok. My biggest problem at the moment seems to be time management, they are either going far too quickly and I wonder how I will ever manage to fill the fifty minutes or they are far too slow and I am at a loss to think how I will get through everything, still I am sure I will get better at that with practise.

Of course I have also been busy with getting myself organised, I now have a bank account, which is sadly quite empty till payday at the end of the month, and this week I will try to get a mobile phone. I'm not sure I will be able to as I don't have my Alien Registration Card (ARC) yet and they have apparently been getting tougher on regulations but I will try. I am also trying to get my apartment organised and tonight I will go over to the departing teacher's apartment to see what I want to keep. Ordinarily I would have moved in there but the building is kind of old so I was lucky enough to be put somewhere new. I will also be taking over her bicycle so I am looking forward to being a little more mobile and to having a slightly shorter commute (specially while it's so humid or raining).

I just like looking at this!

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40 Countries! That's 17%!!! :D