I am back at work again :(
Things are a little different with the new faces in the teachers room. Plus I will have an extra elementary visit this term, so i will be away more often. My JTE has said she needs me in every class at Kurohone, so i will probably be much busier this term than in the previous 3.
That's not a bad thing, but I may find myself regretting asking for more work before I'm done.
My last few days in Thailand were nice, got to see Pat and her brother on Friday, they took me to a place called 'Ancient City'. It's not ancient at all but a new recreation of various buildings and monuments from around Thailand. In a relatively small space you can see the whole country. Interestingly one of the recreations is of the palace in Ayuthaya, the ancient Thai kingdom. I went to Ayuthaya on Wednesday on a day tour, the whole place is ruins now, so seeing the recreated palace in it's supposed original condition was very interesting. Three took me to see a Thai animation that also dealt with the kingdom of Ayuthaya, so it seemed to be a recurring theme on this trip. We stopped at a kind of wetlands nature area where there are thousands of seagulls that swoop around the onlookers for food, it was pretty cool but I found bird crap on my leg later and had to change.
Friday night Pat and I went to a place called Waterside for dinner, it's an outdoor restaurant on a river, that is the eating area is built on wooden decking over the water. It was very nice and a great location, but a bit concerning as far as mosquitos go. I didn't get attacked (I was wearing repellent though). Later we went to see a movie, but since the film I wanted to see wasn't on we ended up seeing a 3D imax movie called 'The Wild Ocean 3D'. It was impressive as imax 3D films always are.
Saturday I got up late, went out for breakfast and then met Three and her friend (who i previously met in Japan) back at my hotel. They took me to Paragon shopping center where we met Brooke for lunch. Hanging out with a bunch of cute and funny girls was a nice way to spend my last day. We ended up at karaoke, one of the song videos featured a whole bunch of Tokyo locations that Three and I had visited, which was ironic (or maybe the word should be appropriate). Then Brooke left and Three drove me to the airport. And after 3 hrs waiting at the airport, a 7ish hour flight, another 2 hours clearing customs and then waiting and then a 3 hour bus ride I was back in Kiryu.
I went to get my car from Marcus's place where I'd left it parked, we ended up getting lunch at Denny's and then watching a Japanese movie on DVD. It was an overlong teen angst filled film called 'All About Lily Chou Chou'. It was filmed in Ashikaga, a city not far from here that the airport bus drove through on the way back to Kiryu.
I stopped at the supermarket on the way home and got a couple of cartons of low fat 'milk drink', it comes packaged like a carton of milk but somehow doesn't taste the same, and some other bits and pieces.
Thailand has better shopping than japan, because the ex-pat community is so big there are products from all over the world, lot's of Japanese stuff, plus lots of American, Australian and European too.
I'm not sure Japan was the right choice for me now, but maybe that's just holiday talk. Everywhere is better than home when you're on holiday.
Still, maybe I should look into Thailand opportunities, they have a rapidly emerging animation industry and a higher level of English language ability...who knows.
