Cherry Blossom Adventures

Patience: Is it a virtue?

I can already tell that I will be lacking patience this week…I can feel it already….

As a teacher, not having patience, is definitely not a good thing.

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• Have been so busy recently. Ever since I came back from Australia I feel like I have been running around like a mad woman…hopefully things will start to settle down soon (Although I doubt it since now we will be house hunting then moving too). I haven`t been checking blogs, writing my own blog or doing much of anything internet related really. Not like me at all!
• We gave notice on the apartment. We have to be out by end of July…It is exciting but scary all the same. See the apartment we live in is actually my apartment. I rented it, and shumpei moved in 2 or 3 months later…and he just pays his half of the rent directly to me. This next apartment will be `ours` and that is kind of a scary thought. What is also scary as that we own things that are `ours` for example the bed, tv and fridge….(I didn`t have a tv when Shumpei moved in here, so he made me buy one…well he made `us` buy one…I had done perfectly well without a tv before then!). I am sure things will go smoothly though (God I hope so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
• Have had emails from my primary school friend Mandy this week. She is basically the only person I keep in touch with from my young young childhood. We met when we were 4 in preschool…We became best friends at 8 or 9 over freddo frogs from the ekka (I am serious!) and our hate for our teacher Mr O`conner (otherwise known as pugnose mick). We went to different highschools but have always stayed in touch. Well she is moving to London….but on her way is coming via Tokyo for four days. I am so excited!!! She will be here in about 6 weeks! ANd I have a long weekend while she is here so can spend lots and lots of time with her!
• I had a crappy morning this morning. There was nothing in the house for breakfast, then I was running late, and then I hopped on my bike, unaware that someone had stuck gum on the seat. I didn`t realize until I tried to get off the bike….It was all over my pants and due to the heat (Yes summer has truly arrived and I hate it) it was really sticky. I rang Shun to see if he could bring extra pants to school since trying to get it out seemed impossible but he was already on the train……..we managed to get most of it out though…and before the kids arrived at school too!
• The two girls I work with have handed in the resignations. One of them I knew was coming, and the second one, Sumi, I knew she was thinking about it. They haven`t quit as such, just neither of them are resigning their contracts which are up end of July and end of August. So we are currently looking for two new teachers…..It sucks, cos I don`t want to be left by msyelf. There are a lot of changes going on in the school too, and ownership might be changing soon. Well the owner is looking to sell due to her health. Anyone want to buy a school?
• Lastly, I went to the beach last weekend. Shun has been very busy with work and he had to work Sunday so I went to Cat`s Saturday night to keep her company and at 2am in the morning she announced that we should go to the beach the next day. We ended up heading out to Kanagawa-ken to Enoshima…and our friend Junni, who had already had his morning surf, came to pick us up from the station and drive us around. It was such a fun day…I should mention beaches here are not nearly as beautiful as the ones in Australia (most of the time anyway, down south in Okinawa beaches and water are awesome!)….but this one was good in comparison to some! It was near Enoshima!!!! Here are some photos!

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I love the fact that you can decide to make hummus (or anything really!) at 11:30 at night then when you finish at 12 and realize you have no fresh vegtables to dip in it for the next day that you can go to the supermarket less than 3 minutes walk away. Because it is open until 2am. (I mean a real supermarket by the way, like coles or woolworths or costco!)

I also love the fact that moterbikes and scooters here have what can only be described as a bike chain. Why? I do wonder. But it is still funny to see! ( To tell you the truth I had never noticed this until I was walking home tonight!)

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I made the huge mistake of leaving our window open last night pretty much from the time I got home from work until Shun got home just after midnight (His work is crazy at the moment!). It was pretty hot yesterday and I hate to use the aicon…

Problem was all the sand flies got in. Or mosquitoes or whatever you want to call them. Now I am covered in small round bumps that are itching like crazy. In particular my arms, bottom halves of my legs and neck and upper back. Rubbing my hand over the back of my neck reminds me of the feeling of chicken pox…. ( I still remember having the chicken pox and my mother soaking me in a bath with special calamine lotion oil or something in it…Or maybe tea….Is a bath with tea supposed to be soothing for itchiness? Or did I just make that up? I was 6 and when I went back to school there were only 5 kids there….out of 30…everyone else had the chicken pox!)

I didn`t even notice last night…they must have been tiny. I only saw one or two and I can`t have gotten all of these bites off only one or two bugs…

From now on I will just use the aicon I think…

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It has started…we are officially apartment hunting. Today we picked up some brochures, we also went into one place to have a look at what they had on offer and ended up going out to see three apartments. Apartment hunting in Japan is crazy…I was so wrecked by the time I found my apartment last time and I was reminded today why I hate it so much…

Real estate agent: `So are you married?`

us: no

Real estate agent: Do you both have guarantors?

Us: Yes, shumpei`s parents

Real estate agent: Well because you are not married she (meaning me) can`t use your parents. She will need to go to a company and pay for a guarantor since she doesn`t have any other Japanese family right?

Us: But his parents are willing to be our guarantor?

Real estate agent: sorry that wouldn`t work…

We thought about this for a bit, and apparently if only Shumpei`s name goes on the lease, we can still live together but I won`t need a guarantor then.

We filled in a couple of forms saying what we wanted etc…

Real estate agent: You realize, before I can show you any apartments I will need to ring and mention that an unmarried couple, one of which is foreign, might want to rent their apartment.

me: Ok, I guess. (I couldn`t really say no now could I?)

Real estate agent then started to do this in front of me.

Real estate agent (to owners): . I have a couple looking for a place, they are not married is that ok? (He would wait for them to say ok …..none of them said no at this point…although one did say as long as we weren`t planning on having kids it was ok???)

Real estate agent: Oh and the girl is foreign…….

Some people actually said no straight out….and he would say `Ok I understand` and hang up. Some would ask more questions…like whether I spoke Japanese, where I was from, whether I had a job, what job I had etc.

The couple of places that said ok, would receive this reaction from the real estate agent ` Oh thank you so much for, thank you so much` As if them thinking about renting an apartment to me was nothing short of a miracle.

TO tell you the truth, the guy that helped us today was actually pretty good. Some people I dealt with last time, especially if Shumpei or Shun`s mother weren`t with me, some of the things they would say to me were terrible….One guy refused to even show me places I wanted to see because I was foreign…he wouldn`t even ring the owners and ask if it was ok. Shun was with me that time, and by that time I was so over apartment hunting that I hadn`t even wanted to go into the place because I had said to them they were always so mean and he said they wouldn`t be mean to me if he was there. And that guy that time was the worse…

We saw three apartments today, two of which I liked ( I could ride to work from both of them in less that 30 minutes). The thing is we really need to get the 7000 dollars we will probably need to move together first….We were hoping to move by the end of June but it doesn`t look like it will happen….That is a lot of money, money that we don`t have lying around. In fact I have no savings at the moment and Shumpei only has a little….

I really want to move though….I am so sick of our little cramped apartment!!! We were talking about money today and if we live really tightly we might be able to get the money together before end of July…then it would be just a matter of finding an apartment.

Oh the joys of apartment hunting!!!!!!

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My day at work today made me think I would never want kids……………Wednesday`s at the kindy are always crazy crazy days.

It didn`t help that yesterday I slipped at school and hurt sprained my ankle. This morning when I woke up it was feeling a lot better…until one of the kids sat on it. Twice.

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Yes, I am home. Back in Tokyo! I arrived back on Saturday but am just getting around to posting again now. Shun`s computer had some weird kind of virus thing happening but now that that is all cleared up I am free to blog!!! I think dot points are in order though….

• Had a wonderful week back home in Brisbane. Saw family and friends. Ate great food and shopped! I shopped a lot! I also met some brissie bloggers which was great. We had a lovely dinner near the valley and then the next day a couple of us headed to the coast….thanks so much to D`Jen for organizing the get together and for offering to drive us down the coast. I was so happy to be apart of the first brissie bloggers road trip!!! Read about it here, here and here!! There are photos too!!! It seems like so long ago now that I was in Brisbane. I went back to work yesterday and it has been non-stop since then! Had a great time though!!!!!! Will be back next year! ( Ps: I had every intention of writing a proper post about my holiday, but it really does seem like so long ago….So it probably won`t happen!)
• One of my favourite students who left the kindy at end of March to attend a kindy closer to her house has come back. Turns out it wasn`t for her…and we are so glad. She is so adorable! It is lovely to have her back!!!
• Dammit, there was just an earthquake. Small one, I thought the desk was shaking…but I often think that (I am always imagining earthquakes when I am on the computer…I think it is cos the computer is on a really wobbly crappy desk!) and then when no notice came up on the TV i thought I must have been dreaming. But nope, the notice just popped up on the TV!
• On Saturday I met another blogger, Enny, who just happened to be in Japan for the last week. I met her and her partner, the hun, and we went to Harajuku to see the harajuku girls. Problem was, it was raining, and not very many of them came out to play unfortunately! Such a shame! It was still a lovely day though!!!! Despite the rain (and wet shoes and socks hey enny?!), we managed to do a bit of walking around and went to see Meiji Shrine, Takeshita street, see Nicole Richie and her bf from Good Charlotte (No joke…they just walked past us when we were on the street!) and then we headed to Roppongi Hills and ended up looking through the art gallery there to get out of the rain!!! Enny will be almost home now, if not home already! Hope you made it back safe!
• It is getting hot already here…It is also getting humid. I hate humidity with a passion. I love Tokyo, but I really could do without the humidity!!!
• Congratulations to my mate James who has just scored himself a new job!!! Yay!
• Sorry I haven`t been visiting blogs lately. I hope to get back into reading and commenting on everyone`s later this week!!!
• I have nothing else to say!

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