Sunday, 27 March 2005

Happy Easter!

Crap, this site's gone to Hell! I've seriously had so little free time this past few weeks since China, I havn't even had time to finish talking about... China!

I'll get around to it sooner or later. See how realistic this blog is? You get a real impression of the busy life that living in Japan creates! It's like a cultural phenomenon that you're experiencing right here! Don't think of it as "Get of your arse and write something interesting!", think of it as an accurate depiction of..... ah, screw it. I'll write something when I feel like it. ;) Haha.

Well, the average Nova student seems to know less about Easter than Christmas, but then I can't say I know about every culture in the world's holiday either, but still, people have told me Santa is a Christian icon. Go figure. Anyway, had some fun forcing my culture upon some students today by giving them some leftover Easter Eggs (REALLY hard to find in Japan. I couldn't find ANY hot cross buns!) and explaining the brief history. A lot of us foriegners (hate that word) even forgot it was Easter. You honestly can't tell in Japan as there's no Easter celebration at ALL.

The word "foriegner". I've never used that word n conversation until I came to Japan. I HATE it. Use "Australian" or "people from outside Japan" or .... MY NAME, or even "sir". I find it really racist how I'll get called "Gaijin / Foreigner" and a Japanese person will get called "sir". Come on. And they use the word to describe EVERY non Japanese person. How can I "look like a foreigner" when the same word is used to describe people from BRAZIL.

One of my kinder's called me a "baka gogokujin" the other day, which I gave him a time out for. It didn't really effect me at all, but after my shift it just hit me and I was in instant offended mode, and honestly on the verge of crying (but in a manly way, and I didn't so just pretend I didn't say that). It just made me feel shitty for about 48 hours straight. That and several motherfucking shithouse management decisions at work (I'm over it now)... well if I was at work at 3am in the morning, I would have walked into the office and given a 5 minutes notice right there and then.

I'm feeling much better now (fine actually), but being called that really triggered some shit. I wasn't offened, it's really hard to explain. It just triggered something.

Annyway..... that was a rant and a half.

I'm feel pretty good now. Happy Easter all!

Monday, 7 March 2005

Back from Beijing!

Had the best time in Bejing! It was really suprising! I think the city broke every expectation I had had of the country and people.

The flight from Narita had a bit of a rough start with turbulence that was rocking the plane so much that I could see the city lights below us out of the SIDE windows. Almost 90 degree angles here. Stress inducing as Hell. But after the first 45 minutes it calmed down and the flight was only about 3 hours so I was able to enjoy a movie (Sideways, definitly 5 stars!) right before we landed in Bejing.

There couldn't have been a more beautiful landing in China; it was snowing and we had fireworks going off all around us. For a second I actually thought that the fireworks were just for us, but then I remembered that tonight was a special lantern festival. But it was still amazing.

Following my Lonely Planet guidebook I reserved a hotel from a desk at the airport and was amazed how cheap it was! Got myself a 4 star hotel for about US$40 a night! Also paid for a car to drive me to my hotel. Something that I found pretty refreshing was the three girls at the airport hotel booking desk were yelling at each other from across the airport, relaxing behind the desk and not going out of their way to fake politness. It was GREAT! I really appreciate honesty after spending so long in a country where everyone acts "polite" because they think they should rather than because they want to.