Where to begin....

Well its been a busy few weeks since the last post. To begin with Golden week was pretty much sorted out and I went to Kagoshima with the Yamamoto family, it was a great holiday. We treked up mountains, had a barbeque, went to onnsen and saw some incredible views. I also got to meet Yoko Yamamoto`s cousin and her family, who were very nice people and spoke great english, they also had a daughter my age so it nice to talk to someone of the same age.

On the first day we went for a walk after arriving at mountain center and walked to the top (although it wasn`t steep, just long) and although it was great I unfortunatly had an extremely bad stomach ache just as we reached the top. Regrettably as we were at the top it was an extremely long walk (to be honest it was more of a hobble) to the nearest toilet, some 30 minutes away. Lets just say I have never been more excited to go to toilet. After that incident we drove to the campsite and took our luggage into our cottage. It was interesting to see the Japanese camping style, compared with the english. There were virtually no caravans or campervans in sight and due to the crowd of misplaced tents there was virtually no ground. Fortunatly our accomodation was, well, more accomodating in a nice quiet area surrounded by trees and the other cottages. Japanese camping is more like a quick fix and reduction of the english size. On the night we went to the local onnsen and had a tasy barbequed meal (japanese style)、which consisted of multiple things, most I knew, but with the added excitement of bowel.

The next day we had free time in the morning, for which myself, Emiko, Chikako and Rise spent playing card games and badminton, with the addition of Yoko. We then went to the onnsen, overlooking a pretty cool view, but I was slightly off put by the sulpher that coursed through the air. The barbeque on the night consisted of Curry Rice and a mixture of other things, but I can`t seem to remember what (maybe I had too much bowel).

The final day we went for a big walk up a big mountain, as I was more genki (feeling good) this day I decided to run most of the way with Rise (who lets just say made her best attempt). This mountain was abit steeper, but i found it to be more fun because it was a challenge. Once we reached the partial top area, there were 3 seperated ways to go, so off I went up one and was treated to a great view of the lake below and its surrounding mountains that gleamed with the glaring sun. After we rolled down the mountain (true in a way) we got back into the car for a drive to a nice posh restaurant for lunch and I had chicken and it was the best chicken i`ve had in Japan.

To finish off the day we had a long drive back and a stop off at the local Ramen shop for some yummy Ramen then a short drive back home.

And that was the first holiday.

The second holiday which was on the weekend I spent with Yukari and we went to Hause Tein Bosch (I`ll check the spelling later) . But I will have to write about that another time as I am going to the gym now and then having tea at the church. Also after the enjoyment of the holiday came the worst days ever, but thats got to wait maybe a day or two till I write about....

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling...

Just as soon as you think the ball has stopped the ground caves in and it carries on its downward journey.

Golden week is coming up (next week) and all was going well, until there was a few problems about where and what I am going to do. At first I was invied to go with the Yamamoto family camping, but as we have both been busy not much more was said about it, I also got an invite off another family to go to Kumamoto, but I told them that I would need to think about it because of the initial invite, my girlfriend also wants to make plans as she has the day off on the 5th and 7th of May and as she is going to America for two months I really want to see her as much as I can before she goes, but I also want to travel. The plans were previously stated werent so much of a problem, until I got the recent invite today from one of the nursery parents about going on a cycling trip, which I was presumming was on a different day, or would have at least left me time to go with the Yamamoto family and/or meet my girlfriend and although I said to them that I would need to think about it, I think they got the inpression that I had no other plans and it was where I was going to go, so I have sent an email to the father and hopefully he can understand my english enough because they seem to have already applied for it (like a couple of hours after I said that I might be able to go) so at the moment things are getting pretty confusing.

To be honest my plan which I would like to do is to go camping with the Yamamoto family and get back in time for me to go and see my girlfriend on the 7th of May because I am so torn between what is going to happen. If I say no to everyone and just see my girlfriend on the 5th and 7th, then I will regret not going on a holiday travelling, but if I say yes then I am really going to regret it if I dont see my girlfriend until after she comes back. Hopefully today I will speak to the Yamamoto`s and be able to sort out what is happening because otherwise I might end up somewhere and still be confused about what is happening.

Lets hope by my next blog I will have found out what is happening, before everyone thinks i am going cycling, although most people already do because thats what Etsuko sensei and the teacher think I am doing, even though I was only told about it 3 hours ago!!!

Do you ever get the feeling....

Do you ever get the feeling that your life is like a snowball which is rolling very fast down a very big hill and you hit every rock as you go down?

Its a wierd simile, but at the moment that what I feel like. After the "incident" things were starting to get abit better, but during the course of getting a girlfriend I seemed to anger afew people that I didn`t think would have been affected by it. Take for instance Yuka (the girl that I went to the cinema with) after we went to the cinema we didn`t see each other again, but we still kept in contact via email, until she found out that I had made a girlfriend, then things started to go abit ... I knew that she only wanted to be friends, but because I liked her and then abit after I got a girlfriend, she thinks that I am a playboy (which is in a way is quite a funny thing to compare me with) She really seems to hate me because of it and at times its kind of confusing, partly because of the language barrier, but also because of the gender barrier. So the current news with Yuka is that she never wants to see me again and although I doubt that we might have met again anyway it still saddens me to lose a friend.

Moving on.... I have been extremely nervous on how Emiko was feeling about this because I had emailed her a few times and she hadnt replied and I thought that she didn`t want to speak to me as well because she is Yuka`s friend. The last time that I saw Emiko was about 2 weeks ago and I really miss seeing them and its hard to understand how everyone is feeling, but to be honest I didn`t think me getting a girlfriend would have affected so many other people. Although I was relieved when Emiko replied and told me that she had just been busy, but its still hard when I dont see her or her family as much.

Hopefully people will forgive me for trying to be happy and lets hope the snowball　slows down.....

On the road to recovery

I have just received a pleasing email from Maggie Powell, who is a GAP co-ordinator and apparently it seems that accroding to GAP I can go where I want or do what I want in my spare time as long as it doesn`t affect work (i.e getting there on time and been able to do my job like usual). So everything seems to be falling back into place and hopefully this weekend I can go whereever I want until the monday.

Today I also made my first proper meal, which was a combination of meat, chicken, noodles and vegetablesb and it was very tasty and went pretty well, apart from the smoke, but thats nothing to worry too much about. Tommorow I will be going to another families house for tea, so that should be much more tasty than what I cook.

I`m too tired to write a long post tonight because the kids wear me out too much and its too late, so bye bye and lets hope things get even better.

Currently Undergoing problems

If you have already notcied I have not been updating my site as much as I would like, due to many problems I am currently having, which has been taking up most of my time. So I apologise for this, but hopefully everything will be sorted as soon as possible.

My knights in shining kimono`s

"When there`s something strange in the Neighbourhood who you gonna call Ghostbus....." actually this time it was the Yamamoto`s that came to save me from the onslaught of the mosquito empire with the mosquito repellent domy shaped thing. I haven`t tested it out yet because I think I kill the current mosquito`s that were dwelling in my room, but hopefully it will force away any new blood suckers that like me.

I am back at the Yochien tommorow so I really hope that I can get some sleep tonight or else I will be zombified in the morning.

And on that note its an early bedtime.

P.S If the Yamamoto`s are reading this thankyou for the mosquito repellent and the cookies mmmmm...... oshii

The Mosquito`s are back and hungry for blood

Last night I had the worst sleep ever. After clearing away all of the pots and pans I had accumulated for my new adventure into the world of cooking and setting up all the new bedsheets and pillow I bought and hoovering all the floor to make the whole place nice and tidy and finally, getting a shower, I put my head down to rest, only to be kept awake by the buzzing of the mosquito that was above my ear. After about 30 minutes of searching for it I finally found it and BANG down it went. Once again I put my head back down to rest and once again, buzz, buzz, searchy searchy, BANG, BANG. This routine went on for another 2 mosquito`s at which the time by now was around 5am without any sleep at all. So I took measures to make sure no more appeared. I cellotaped paper over the fan (in case thats how they got in and put a towel under the door. Although it seemed that one was already in the room, so after the final kill at about 6am I finally managed to get some sleep, until about 9.30 when I woke up and my body decided that it didnt want to go back to sleep, so overall because of the damn mosquito`s I got a total of 3 and a half hours sleep. To make things even worse when I got up I noticed another mosquito on my window and with a swift movement of a shoe down it went.

I am now determined to get some insect repellent because if I have one　more night like that I will go insane.

I am still very tired now, but at 3pm I am going to have a piano lesson, so that should wake me up abit.

ZZZzzz...