Jun 2006

For the last three weeks we have been doing an extra shift of OT on Thursdays and have had some sort of training on Friday morning. So, we haven't had a full day off in three weeks. And today was our first one. (And I actually got a call from ECC to go work OT today, but I declined that offer).

The problem with not having a full day off in three weeks is all the little things didn't get done around our apartment. So we had to spend the morning cleaning the apartment. It was a great way to spend our morning off. Then we went exploring around Juso and found a really nice temple and a huge grocery store. It was a productive morning.

In the afternoon we decided to go up the Umeda Sky Building to get a view of the city. The sad thing is all you see when you go up the building is city. The Umeda Sky Building is the really tall buidling directly across the river from our apartment. You take an elevator up to the 34th floor then you take an escalator from one building to the other. Then you walk up another floor and you get a view of the city.

In the lobby at the top of the building they had this diorama set up that displays Dotonbori (a part of downtown Osaka) as it was when it was first founded. All the dolls were made of paper, as well as their clothes and their hair. The pictures don't do the detail justice. (Side note: Courtney wanted to put the Gnome in the diorama and take a picture, but I suggested that it wouldn't be the best idea (ok, I lied. It was me that suggested this)).

These are a few shots taken from the top of the building. They are all taken in a different direction.

I find it interesting what a lack of space does to your construction and design ideas. Back home, we just keep building out because we have lots of space. Here they have to think vertically and build everything up because they don't have space. For example, this school that had to put their pool on top of their building (I think the engineers here are a little bit better than the folks that built Fenwick. They can actually use this pool).

This is my favorite picture from the day, it is our apartment. Well, the apartment above our apartment. We put some money in one of the binoculars and held the camera up to the eyepiece and took this picture.

Here are a few other fun shots from the top of the building.

A the bottom of the Umeda Sky Building they have a replica of an old Japanese street. It is really impressive and they put a lot of effort into the detail.

Random Thoughts #3 -

I'm sure one of the more better gnome pictures I'll get.
Penguins + Orville Gnome = unbeatable army!

We maxed out all of our photo space for May about half way through the month, so we decided not to make any more posts. That's why there are so many so far this month.

• C - I found Acadian Seaplants grown pink treated Chondrus in a pack of dried seaweed salad mix at the grocery store the other day. It tasted like home! I was excited and really weirded out at the same time. Talk about full circle!

• We are both doing a class that is organized by this extremely, EXTREMELY dry British man. If you think of how dry most British people are then double it, you are about half way to how dry this guy is. (And, this is coming from me and my pretty dry sense of humour). It is sooooo painful, but it is hilarious. He has sent out a couple of emails that have made Court and I both laugh ridiculously hard. Here are some excerpts:

  The first email is about teacher's taking other teacher's tapes:

  I am therefore suggesting to all teachers that you take precautions. Label your tapes. Hide them! Take them home with you! Hire armed guards! Keep them in jars full of anthrax spores! Something!

  The second one is about him arranging a time to come out and observe our classes.

  I will send a formal notice about observations out to the schools. Please watch the bulletin board.

  I will be sending you notice of your individual observations next week, either telepathically or by pigeon. I haven't decided which yet.
  

• We have started taking Japanese lessons. There is a community college that offers free Japanese lessons. Basically, we go and work one on one (well, Courtney and I) with a Japanese teacher. He is a nice guy, he taught a former ECC teacher couple last year. So far we have learned how to introduce ourselves, ask where things are (toire wa doko desuka?) and say we want to buy this (kore kudasai). The only problem is we can't understand any answer we will get yet. That will be the next step.

  However, one of the first things we started to learn are the characters. Basically, we are learning to read and write all over again. It is actually coming along nicely, I can actually read some words now. I don't know what they mean yet, but I can read them.

  In Japanese writing they actually use three different types of characters:

  - hiragana - This is used for Japanese words and each symbol represents a sound. It actually makes a lot of sense because you know if you see と it means to ("toe"). And it can't sound like anything else. This is what we are learning right now.

  - katakana - This is used for borrowed words (basically English words) so it is used to write our names，McDonald's and all the other words

  - kanji - These symbols are used to represent Chinese words or full Japanese words. Each kanji character represents a full word or concept. There are over 4,000 kanji characters and very few people know them all.

When I went out to the kindergarten the other day, they had a hiragana poster up on the wall and they were further ahead than us.

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