I'm back at work after the 5 days holiday (including weekend). Lots of ALTs are still away overseas, but it's only a couple of days at work and then the weekend again.
Then I just have to manage for a little over a month till June 20th and I'm off to the US. When I get back from the States it will be just under a month till the end of my contract, so it will be an easy run...hopefully.
I went to the movies and saw 'Burn After Reading' on Sunday. That's one good thing about Japan I guess, a movie that I missed months and months ago turns up in cinemas here and I can see it after all.
Monday I went to Tokyo and stayed for a couple of nights. Wakana took me to Yokohama to the Short Shorts film screenings. Amazingly the festival is ongoing and is sponsored by a real estate company. They have a permanent cinema under an apartment block and regularly show screeings from the festival. I have to admit to being completely baffled by the Japanese 'comedy' that was shown. But I don't think Wakana got it either.
We also went to see an exhibition of work by Osamu Tezuka, the guy who created Astroboy among other things. It was about 60% work I saw at the exhibition in Melbourne a couple of years ago, but there were other things as well. Including photographs of the national gallery in Melbourne and a note about that exhibition.
The next day we went to an aquarium, there's a bunch of photos. It rained pretty heavily that day, but we were mostly inside. Unfortunately the amusement park rides shut down for the rain so i didn't get to ride any.
Still a little sniffly and taking drugs, but much better than last week. I'm sure I have been sounding a lot worse than I feel. The latest cold tablets I got seem to make me drowsy though, so I am feeling like my head is stuffed with cotton wool, the kids probably won't notice since I'm just a mysterious oddity to them anyway.
Back home I found a mukade the other day. Mukade are venomous centipedes. I washed the car and bike last week. The next day I found a mukade in the empty bucket that was in the enrance area to my house, the place where all my empty shoes are kept. So I have to remember to shake out my shoes every day. I found one last year in my gargage bin in the kitchen, so I sprinkled this white powder that kills them instantly all around the doorways and window ledges. I'm sure if I found one inside there must be others. I'm sleeping under a mosquito net lately anyway since there are all kinds of bugs inside.
The other running battle I have is with the collar of my leather jacket. It keeps growing mould. I scrub it clean and put it outside in the sun to get some UV rays, but then after a day hanging in the damp and gloomy house it has more mould. I am worried I may have to toss it out.
It's been wet and cold lately, but Spring is definitely here, the trees are very green and there are intensely brightly coloured flowers everywhere. The seasons are much more dramatically distinguished here than in Australia.
The last day in Tokyo I stopped at Akihabara on my way out as it was nearby Ueno where my hotel was. I have a photo of some of the famous 'maids' who were out trying to get business. They are actually waitresses at 'maid cafes', which are restaurants where the staff treat the customers as their 'master'. Welcoming customers as if they have just come home from work and generally playing up to a fantasy lifestyle. The maid cafes tend to be very busy with long waiting lists, I suspect they don't need to be out trying to get new business as much as giving directions to the restaurants, a lot of restaurants are hard to find if you don't know where they are already, often on the upper floors of otherwise non-descript buildings. There are also apparently butler cafes for the ladies.
The other day I also found eco-chocolate in the supermarket. It's rain forest alliance accredited so it would have been unethical not to buy it...right?
