I finally went to a karaoke box for the first time in my life! Can you believe that I have been living in Japan for almost two years now, and I have never been to karaoke? To tell you the truth, I thought I would hate karaoke. I have some horrible memories of drunken office Christmas parties filled people that I hate screeching off tune into portable karaoke sets. Ugh. I have even worse memories of my manager forcing me to sing when I would have rather have stabbed him with a pencil or something. So you can see that I had some really strong feelings about karaoke! Anyway, I thought I better go to a karaoke box before I go back to Canada, because it is such a typically Japanese experience. I LOVED IT! It was soooooooooooooo cool! We got our own little room, and we could drink as many soft drinks as we wanted for free (well, for 190 yen per half hour). In one hour, I drank something like 6 pops! We also ordered lots of dishes that were only 280 yen each. It was great singing and snacking. The first song I sang was "On Top of the World" by the Carpenters. I also did songs by Simon and Garfunkle and the Beatles. What a great time. Now I want to go to Karaoke all the time . . . it's too bad I'm leaving soon. I wish I had discovered karaoke earlier!

If you have time, check out the pictures of anti-smoking messages I put up on my other blog:

http://www.gaidaiglobalissues.blogspot.com/

I had the best meal the other day, and I can't really remember what the restaurant was called. It was in the gourmet museum below Hankyu station, and the food was really weird, but good. They had really reasonably priced set meals - won ton soup, mini gyoza, fried chicken and rice with little baby fish on top was only 680 yen, including a drink. I thought that was really cheap. Usually, I like to go to a chicken restaurant around the corner from Hep 5 - but lately I have been boycotting them because there are so many smokers in that restaurant, and it is only tiny, so the smoke gets really bad sometimes. Anyway, if you see a really weird kind of restaurant in the Gourmet Museum below Hankyu, don't be shy to try it. It's good!

You know, I had breakfast at McDonald's the other day (I know, I'm just asking for a heart attack), and I got so annoyed. I was sitting in the non-smoking section - and someone was SMOKING. ARGH. Usually I would say something, but I was so bloody annoyed, I was worried I would explode. Plus the guy smoking looked like some scarey yakuza pimp or something. I guess I am just a wimp. But, please, even if you are in the yakuza, please respect the non-smoking signs in McDonald's.

phew! My blog is back. That was so stressful for a while. I was just going to make comments on some of my students' blogs, and maybe make a blog myself. I thought it was going to only take about five minutes, and I have been trying to get my blog to work for almost 30 minutes. Oh well, at least it's working now!

I ate soba for lunch . . . green, white and brown. It was so good.

That's all folks . . .

Where's my blog? I can't see it. What's going on??

Aichi Expo Rocks!

It's Tuesday, and I think I am finally recovering from my one day trip to Aichi Expo last Saturday. It was such a great day! I got up super early, and met my friends at Tsuruhashi Station in Osaka to take the 7:36 Kintetsu Train to Nagoya. I was so sleepy, but I was too excited to sleep on the train. In Nagoya, my friends and I took a shuttle bus to the Expo site. Once at Expo, there was so much to do that I didn't know where to begin. The first thing I did was talk to a robot lady. It was amazing. I asked her, in English, what she recommended I have for lunch, and she told me to eat Miso Udon! Maybe her English is better than some of my students (ha ha - just kidding!) Then, I went to have a look at some pavillions. The first pavillion I was was Cuba. It was really tiny, with no line up, but it was still kind of interesting. I also saw: Turkey, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Krygistan (all the stans), Saudi Arabia (I got a free music CD here). Basically, if there was no line up, I went into the pavillion! I also went to the UN too. The coolest thing was when I went to the Canadian Pavillion, I didn't have to wait in line! There was a one hour line up, but I got to skip it because I am Canadian. I went through the side entrance, and got a VIP tour of the Canadian Pavillion. I also got a pin too. It was so nice to see the Canadian Pavillion, I got really homesick! Everyone there was so friendly, and it was nice to chitchat with Canadians again. Some other pavillions that I went to were the electricity pavillion (we road around in a circus train), the transportation pavillion (it was a ferris wheel that was half inside, and half outside a building), and the JR Pavillion. The 3-D show in the JR Pavillion was really cool! It was like riding a train with no wheels at over 500 kms an hour! There was also a lot of cool food at the Expo too. I ate Miso Katsu and Kishimen because I wanted to try out traditional Nagoya food. I also got to eat Turkish Icecream. It was really chewy and weird, but I liked it. One of the best pavillions that I went to was the Japanese Pavillion. It was fascinating. I really recommend it to everyone, even if you are Japanese! Anyway, Expo was amazing, but I think I only saw about 25% of it. I came back that same day on the last Kintetsu Train at 9:30 pm, and I didn't get back to my apartment until about 1 am. I was so exhausted, but it was totally worth it. However, if you can, try and go for more than one day. Don't be crazy like me!

I had another barbecue! It was so great. There were four of us all together on my balcony, barbecuing and having fun last Saturday. My Japanese friend told me that Japanese people don't usually barbecue on their balconies, but we do it all the time in Canada (well, in the summer, naturally). We barbecued lots of vegetables (zuchini, eggplant, sweet potatoes, cabbage, onions, carrots, mushrooms, pumpkin . . . . . . . . . ), and we also barbecued beef, pork, chicken and shrimp. It was all so good. I was totally stuffed afterwards. It was so fun because it was a little bit like camping, but without having to go anywhere or pee in an outside stinky toilet. The best part was after the barbecue when we just sat around the glowing charcoals and talked, sang and played the guitar. My friend Lori just bought a second hand guitar for only 3000 yen, and it is better than my Yamaha guitar I paid 30,000 for!

Ooooooops, gotta go teach!

Golden Week is over :-(

Here I am at my desk in my office. Golden Week is already over, and I am so exhausted from my holiday, that I need a holiday because of my holiday! I hope my students don't notice how exhausted I am today. Golden Week was a little bit weird this year, because I had to work for one day in the middle of it. Because of that, it was like I had two mini golden weeks, side by side. For the first half of Golden Week, I didn't really do much because I had to work on the Monday. However, I did go on an amazing hike on the borders of Hygo and Osaka Prefectures. I went hiking up a mountain called Myoken-san (I think). There was a really amazing kind of buddhist temple at the top. It was totally modern. The mountain itself was really beautiful, and hiking back down, I hiked beside a small stream that gradually because a river. It was so good to get back out into nature and smell some fresh air.

The second half of my Golden Week holiday was the exact opposite of my first half. Whereas in the first half, I enjoyed lots of nature and traditional Japanese culture, in my second half I went to Tokyo on the Shinkansen. I totally love the Shinkansen! It is so fast. I was in Tokyo in less than three hours. I stayed in Tokyo for two nights and three days. Tokyo is amazing. I saw so many cool things while I was there. I even went to the top of Tokyo Tower. I stayed in Shinjuku, but my favourite part of Tokyo was Harajuku. I really felt like I was in a world class city. I could feel myself coming alive with the coffee shops, restaurants and tree lined boulevards. One place I must recommend to everyone is a little french restaurant I found in Takadanobaba. It is called "La Dinette", and it was simply amazing. For only 2100 yen, you get a three course authentic French meal. I was in heaven! I started off with a smoked mackeral salad. Then, for my main course I had the should of lamb. Perfect! To finish it all off, I had a creme brulee. I think it was the best meal I have had in Japan (hmmm, except for maybe Kani Doraku, but that was A LOT more expensive). S i g h.

However, now the holiday is over, and it's back to reality. There are only two and a half months left this semester! Wow, where does the time go?