Christmas Time, No Mistletoe, No Twine.

Here is my Christmas display, as you can see a tree is sadly lacking but my wonderful friend Claire has furnished me with my very own Christmas Stocking so I decided to make something of a feature.
This will be my first Christmas not spent in a predominantly Christian country and I am finding the fact glaringly obvious. It's not so much because of what there is going on but more for what there is a lack of. For example Christmas Carols: Having worked in retail over several Christmas periods I have to say that I got a little carolled-out so it actually makes a nice change not to be bombarded with them at every turn. I really only hear the occasional one on the radio at work and when I visit the department store over the road. And they seemed to have to dignity not to start in on them until pretty recently. Also Christmas lights, I have only seen two houses in Kak that have displays and they are very small. There are some decorations in the shops but I have only seen one boogying Santa... thank goodness...

Yesterday was the AEON Christmas Party. It was in a cafe/diner near the school and about 30 students attended. It was a really nice occasion, although perhaps not very Christmassy. We played bingo and ate far too much food, some Western and some Japanese. It was nice to spend some more time with the students outside of the class environment.

One thing that does happen in Kobe around Christmastime is this amazing light display. I went last night with my friend Yuka (that's her in the first picture) who, although she lives in Kobe, hadn't seen it yet as she has been working too late each evening. We were very lucky as although rain had been forecast it held off and the crowds were not too bad. One of my students visited on Saturday night and he told me that he had to wait one and a half hours just to get anywhere near the lights.




After we'd seen the lights we went to have dinner overlooking the harbour so that was a nice way to end the day. When I got back to Kak the temperature was down to 4.8c! OUCH!

Today I went to the bike shop to get my spare bike's tyres looked at. I had tried to pump them up myself but couldn't get the air into one and the other just went down again. Although that was the reason I took the bike into the shop the man working there did a real overhaul, checking the brakes, oiling the chain and making sure the light worked etc and all at no extra charge, they certainly know the meaning of customer service in this country!

A Date With Dumbo

Some of you may remember my Disney addiction? Well yesterday I fulfilled a long-held ambition and visited my fourth park (just one to go). I went with Yukari, one of my fellow teachers at AEON. We left after work on Saturday night, first going into Osaka on the train and then from Osaka to Tokyo on the bus. It wasn’t a bad trip, although naturally I didn’t get quite as much sleep as I would have liked, and we arrived at the park at around 7.15am. We went and put our bags in a locker and then made our way around to the gate. We had to wait until the park opened at 8am and I was amazed at how many people were there already.



When the gates opened we made our way inside and it was nice to see all the Christmas decorations up.

There was even a special Dumbo one, so naturally I had to get a picture.



Then we started in on the rides. The first one we took was Pirates of the Caribbean, since it is the closest to the entrance and a favourite for both of us. I was interested to see that the ride was in reverse order to the ones in the other parks. For those who are familiar with the ride the town and battle scenes came after the dead pirates. Then we lined up for Fast-passes to Buzz Lightyear, which took about 15-20 mins, but was worth the wait as the queue for the ride itself was already around 2 hours! I was amazed at how long some of the lines were considering that it’s winter, the Haunted Mansion, Thunder Mountain Railroad and Pooh’s Hunny Hunt were all over the two hour mark for most of the day.

We had some breakfast and then took a jungle cruise, and there were more elephants!



Then we went to a couple of the shows, the Enchanted Tiki Room and the Country Bears’ Playhouse. The Tiki room was pretty much all in Japanese but the Country Bears’ was a Christmas show so there were some English songs. In fact one was quite a humorous one but I did wonder if I was the only one in the audience who got it.

By then the sun had come out so we decided to go on Splash Mountain, however when we arrived at the ride I thought that my Splash Mountain Curse had come back into effect as it had broken down. So we decided to brave the line for the Thunder Mountain Railroad, we got on the ride in just about two hours, but luckily most of the time we were standing in the sunshine so it was quite pleasant.

Then we checked back at Splash Mountain, still no joy. So we lined up for Fast-passes to the Haunted Mansion. We were hungry again after that so had some lunch and then it was time to go on Buzz Lightyear. I managed what I thought was a pretty respectable number of laser hits but on reaching the end found out that I was only qualified as a trainee pilot… well I beat Yukari anyway!

Next we decided that the line for Pooh’s Hunny Hunt had gone down enough for us to join it and that was a very cute ride, complete with some Heffalumps, so that kept me happy. We then went on the Disney train, this was different again to the usual as it didn’t circle the park and make stops, it was almost like a ride in itself. While we were on it we went past Splash Mountain and discovered that it was working again so as soon as we got to the end we raced off to line up for it. We got some Fast-passes and then lined up to ride it as obviously not everyone had realised that it had reopened and so the line was quite short.

Once we’d ridden SM it was time for the Haunted Mansion. This was the only time that I really regretted not speaking any Japanese as the ride had been specially re-modelled just for Halloween and Christmas and although I could enjoy the décor the commentary was of course completely lost on me. The Tokyo Disney HM is different from the others both in appearance, as you can see it looks like a small castle but in the other parks like an old house, and in that the exterior is just a shell, you walk in underneath it whereas the others you enter through the front door.



We came out and it was time for our Splash Mountain Fast-pass, so off we went to ride it again and this time we were in the front seats (it sits two abreast unlike the one in CA) so I got a nice face-full of water, partially my own fault for throwing up my arms as we made the descent but really, that’s part of the fun!

Had another turn on Pirate’s as the queue was still very short and then it was definitely dinner time so we went and ate. After eating we were just around the corner from Buzz so we checked the line and since it was quite short decided to go on it again. We both improved our scores but I was still only ranked as a trainee. Obviously I don’t play enough computer games.

Did some quick shopping, and my self restraint was incredibly tested by the discovery of some Dumbo toys on sale, however I managed to resist and only came away with a Heffalump, and as you can see by the picture, he’s so small he barely counts!



Had one last go on Splash Mountain and then it was time to head for the bus. We were quite lucky in that the bus we came home on was a higher grade so we had more room. Got back to Kak at around 7.15am. Naturally went straight back to bed for a while. Overall it was great and we were very lucky with the weather, I never felt too cold and the sun was shining all day. Next time, Disney Sea!

Leaves Leaving

This weekend I finally got out and about with my camera to try and capture some Autumn colour. Unfortunately I think I left it a little late as many of the trees are now bare, but last weekend the weather was so miserable that I didn't want to go out in it and this weekend there was blue sky and sunshine so I think I made the right choice regardless.

I decided that the best place to go would be Himeji where I could try and get some nice shots around the castle and as you can see below I had a reasonable level of success.











Not much else going on these last few weeks, I had my follow up training at the head office in Osaka. It was quite a good day but very very long. I left home at 10am and didn't get back until 11.15pm. Still it afforded a nice chance to catch up with John and Trish again and also some other fellow AEON teachers who I had met at some of the workshops and meetings.

Should have more to write after next weekend as my fellow Kak teacher Yukari and I are off to Disneyland. We'll take the overnight bus on Saturday night after work, spend all day Sunday at the park and then be on the overnight bus back to Kak that night. No doubt more news and photos when I am back.