. . : : Japan takes the QUEEN : : . .

it's 0 degrees and snow tires are in order. also an emergency earthquake bag (that I disassembled not too long ago...doh!)

I wrote to a mag about 6 months ago about writing a veg guide to J. I didn't hear back from them, so I checked out their site. And what is in their latest edition "Veggie guide to Japan"....hmm....i haven't read it yet, but my first instinct was hey, that was my idea for your mag! oh well....

I'm famous...again! With all of this attention one would think that I was Miss. Popularity here...but I'm not :P . . .LOL!

Ask and you shall receive! I gladly received an 85 on my "Africa’s Access to HIV Antiretrovirals" paper for my class. I am so pleased with it, especially considering the fiasco that went down the night it was due. The comments from the teacher were not brutal and I agreed with him about the fact that I should have explored the "ethics of patents in more depth, including the benefits of allowing exclusivity for a limited period." Makes a big deal of sense. My abstract wasn't as on point as it could have been, but I am happy! YEAH!
This grade also goes along with the no-more-than-a-90% trend that I have in this class. NO matter what I do or how much effort I put in, I have never rec'd more than a 90%. I am learning to accept that :)

who knew that this trip would require so many parts?!
So I had a great night of sleep. Woke up bright and early (kind of but later than I wanted) at 9a. I planned to get up at 6a so I could go down to the waterfront and watch folx do tai chi, but clearly that didn't happen. I checked out of my hotel, then took a train to a bus to Stanley. Stanley is "the" place for shopping in HK. It was a market with a whole bunch of stuff...that's honestly the best way I can describe it. I really didn't see much of anything that I wanted to buy, but I eventually went back to a store and bought all of my items from them. A lot of the booths had the same things, so I figured that I would get a "good price" if I got everything from one person. And I did.


After a few hours, I got back on the trusty bus and had lunch at yet another veggie place. The food was great! FINALLY! With the small exception of the fact that I asked for mock chicken...i think they just might have put something else in there. It was all veggie though b/c it was a veg restaurant, put I left those pieces on the plate. The rest was fabulous. I went to visit another Tin Hau Temple. Then I headed to "The Peak". Now what would possess a sistah like me to get on a tram that rides up the side of a mountain at 27degrees is beyond me. I felt like I was in an amusement park and got chotto nervous going up. It was cloudy when I first got to the top, but it was worth it once it got dark.



I figure since I went all the way up on the tram, I might as well take the ride down. Since it was later than I had planned, I skipped one part of my itinerary and headed back towards my hotel to pick up my bags that I left earlier. On the way there, I passed through Fa Yuen Street and the Ladies Market. Both proved to live up to the "shopping legend" that HK is known for. I still wasn't overly impressed though, but I didn't go there to shop so it doesn't really affect my view of my trip and HK [Bangkok i s the place for shopping...much more diversity in the items]. I still did significantly less shopping than I budgeted for and that was a great thing ;)



By the time I made it back to my hotel, I had literally been walking fr about 10 hours...my feet were T-I-R-E-D...they hurt so bad. I still had more walking to do b/c I wanted to go to SoHo and drop my bags off at the trainstation so I wouldn't have to lug them around for the rest of the night. When I finally got to the early airport check-in at the train station my airline was only one that closed early...too much like right, right?! I put my stuff in storage and kept it movin'.

With my aching feet I walked even more to SoHo and was happy to place my feet on the world's longest covered escalator. All 800 meters of it. You actually had to walk a couple steps in between some sections, but I was TOO grateful for the chance to experience this wonderful attraction and hook myself up at the same time. Had to not been for the escalator, I would have taken taxis for the rest of the night. Where the escalator ended I placed my weary feet in the doorway of a restaurant.



Without even knowing in advance, I placed my veggie feet in the doorway of a raw food/veg restaurant! How amazing is that! I was all to happy to feel the good vibes flowing out of there door to help me float to my seat. Until...they told me that their kitchen was closed...OH NOOEY:( ! I couldn't believe it. I went to about 5 other restaurants who all told me that I was late. I eventually passed by a Szeckechuan (sp?) placed where I saw some dudes eating. They even had a veggie menu (which EVERY place I have been too can do...except J!) and made fresh food for me. I think they were about to close though, so I sped up my eating and gave an extremely hefty tip after finishing my meal. OISHII!

That was HK! I spent the night at the airport, so I wouldn't have to attempt to get up early the next morning. I had a good time! It was a quick trip, but definitely worth it. I would go back again. It would have been nice to share some laughs or conversation while I was there. Aside from the administrative/shopping/tourist questions, I didn't have a conversation for 3 days. I didn't even notice though until I got back to J. That is usually how things are here. I can go an entire day w/o having a conversation (aside from teaching my students)...oh well...such is life (in J)...I am looking forward to my next trip.

So the ride back down the mountain seemed significantly shorter than the way up...of course. I took the train to the general area where my hotel was. I needed to get rid of my backback. It was relatively easy to find and sistah had no problem breaking out the map to find my way. I stayed at the Y and it was nice. I couldn't get a reservation at the plush Y on the water b/c they booked, but my second choice was cool too. Once I got checked in and did a brief bed bug check, I headed back out the door to Tin Tau Temple. It is located in the middle of an urban area. Which seems odd for these parts, but the story is that it was on the harbour font (b4 land reclamation), but the water receded. People still worship there though.

I headed to a veg restaurant for dinner. I wouldn't be a Ms. Preparation Granola if I didn't find a list of veg restaurants in HK before going ;) The food was better than at the monastery but just "okay"...I wasn't impressed. I was very shocked b/c once again, it came highly recommended. After dinner, I took the trusty train to the (Kowloon) waterfront to the Avenue of Stars (kind of like a HK walk of fame) to view the spectacular of lights across the water on HK Island. It was cool and I saw mad J tourists and had a chance to walk through one of "the" trendy areas of HK. Go me!


After the 15-minute spectacular of lights, I got back on the trusty train to explore the night market. When looking for my hotel earlier I stumbled across the ladies market, so I decided to check out the highly recommended night market. I liked the night market. They had stall for days...anything you can think of could be found here...even an "as seen it on TV" stall....



A sistah was tired so I headed in for the night. Although it was only one hour behind, I felt like I was in the US...my eyes were H-E-A-V-Y!

I flew in on Sunday evening. I got to HK around 11p-ish. I decided to stay in the airport b/c I read good reviews about the facilities. The reviews were correct, but I didn't get to use or see many of the facilities b/c I didn't have a departing boarding pass...grrrr...after moving to a couple different places, I slept well.

On Monday, I got up bright an early (5AM) b/c one can only sleep with a certain level of security (no matter how many guards are around). I threw on my backpack, and headed to the bus stop. I took the bus to the nearest train station where I caught a bus to Po Lin Monastery. I got there a little after 9a thinking that things will be going by then, if I wasn't too late. HA! They didn't even open up the temples until 10a and the Budhha wasn't open for viewing until 11a. I walked around the site and took photographs in the meantime. I eventually got the opportunity to view the temples and they were gorgeous...what else would one expect?!





I made it up the stairs that lead to the worlds's tallest, outdoor, seated, bronze Buddha statue. It site on top of Ngong Ping plateau on Lantau Island. After the Buddha, I headed back down the stairs to the monastery for an extremely tasty vegetarian meal...NOT....it wasn't the worst food I tasted but it was highly recommended, but it was not pleasant to me. The cost was good b/c a ticket to the Budhha and the meal cost about $60HK (under $8US). I didn't finish eveything on my plate, but I worked with it considering that the flavors just didn't work well with my palate.

I had never played Za Bito-ru-zu song until last week. We had our mid-year seminar where I gave a presentation on the various areas of listening. As part of the presentation, I introduced an activity that EMS introduced to me at re-contractor's conference (Thanks E!). I usually use other music when I do the activity, but b/c we had varying teacher abilities within the presentation, I went with the same song that E, used....Za Bito-ru-zu....what has the world come to?!

Normally, I wouldn't mind different music, but in J, people swear by the Za Bito-ru-zu. ALL of their songs are available in even the smallest karaoke bars (along with Mr. Big). My tech HS supervisor has a textbook that uses Za Bito-ru-zu for EFL classrooms. It has to be one of the worst books so far. It is supposedly designed to help the students, but I don't even think it does that. Especialy considering that the only English they hear during the whole Za Bito-ru-zu lesson is me reading the words to the song and the song playing. The other 45 minutes is the teacher trying to get the same students who barely know their alphabets to translate the song into English...anyway...I digress...

So aside from the Za Bito-ru-zu experiment, the presentation went well. I didn't hear any bad commentary (although I think that people wouldn't even say anything if they thought it wasn't good) and a few Japanese teachers (of English?) came up to ask us questions about the activities and ideas we presented.

The previous night, I had a chance to meet some (new and old) friends here. I think I LOVE Hach. I Must have said it over 100 times in the few days that I was there. I like the vibe there AND they have food that I can eat that I don't have to cook every night. I will definitely be making more trips over to that side of the ken over the next 8 months!





:: Hanging Out in Hach ::




:: In front of someone's house :: Cemetary in Hach ::

i have been away for an entire week and the ONLY thing I received in the mail was my social security statement?! At least I now can see (on paper) that I have taxed SS earnings since 1992. The funny thing is that my earnings as a children's librarian-esque person were taxed more than my current earnings..HA!

has it been a week already? i went. i presented. i participated. i travelled. i oohed. i shopped. i aahed. i returned.

took my train almost 2 hours to get from Noheji...not sure why.

updates...soon come

SIDE NOTE: saw my first (remnants of a) car accident a few minutes ago. right outside of my apt. not sure of the details and probably will never know of them.

JP provides a clear example of the type of stuff that we have to deal with. My comment to him was:

it is a made-up belief about foreign drivers. if they make you drive to other places during work duties, then it shouldn't be a problem for you to drive other places. i guess b/c bowling is not a work activity, they feel like IF something were to happen [and of course it WOULD b/c they would will it into existence] then the nenkyu god(dess) would bring his/her wrath down on them for not making you take nenkyu to go bowling with them.

On another note, my school does that "you are not a Japanese teacher" move all the time. The only time I am considered a Japanese teacher is when they take money from me every month for enkais that I am either not invited to or can't attend (b/c they refuse to ger food for me or decide to smoke me out). Oh yeah... I am also a teacher when I plan most, if not all the lessons, grade exams, and train students for exams and contests...but you know, I don't measure the student skirts nor do I direct parking lot traffic nor do I have to check their uniforms...and THAT is what being a teacher is all about...not actually teaching :)

They are trippin'...got to love it.

I received my "sorry we might be poisoning you because you live so close to the nuclear plant, so here's some YEN" postcard in the mail. I didn't know what it was, so I asked one of my co-workers. As soon as he said "nuclear power plant", I knew what the money was for. The thing I am wondering is how they got my banking information. AND what makes them thing that 9,888YEN makes up for the nuke plant being so close. Supposedly it's not up and running yet...I don't believe it though. I am glad that I won't be around to find out. I refuse to have radioactive locs....

i have been holding off on my views about a particular topic....school...i have group project to do. i am not sure how the teacher put my group together. supposedly it is by interest expressed in the topics....but i am not sure...maybe it's b/c we are all foriegners (or so he believes) or maybe not...who knows?!....either way...on more than one occasion i have noticed that people in my group are missing something...i can not pinpoint it. they know what the topic is but the results (or lack there of) make me feel like they don't understand what goes into producing a paper or something...i am not sure...maybe i am wrong. i was trying to not be so aggressive about the whole process, but i think i need to take the reigns (more than I have already)....this is not good considering the paper is due in 3 weeks...not cool...

that's right...its snowed all day. apparently all night. i was not ready when i got outside and saw that my car looked like a sugar coated green-tea cake. i heard the winds howling but i didn't even think to look outside. why would I?! it was only last night that i said to mommy... oh, the weather is great...it hasn't even snowed yet...i must be getting use to it...i don't put my heater on often... HA! spoke too soon.

the good thing is that the weather outside isn't so frightful....

began a new day
mother nature did not warn
the snow has fallen

I had a pretty productive day. I was able to do some work, some net browsing, some lesson planning, some net browsing, spoke to Mommy, some net browsing, and then some net browsing.

English Club was pretty good today. We actually just sat around and talked! WHOA! YUp, we sat around and talked and joked about different subjects. It was nice. My students have improved so drastically from when I first met them over a year ago. It will be sad to leave them...*sniffle*...almost makes me feel like staying another year....SIKE! HA! They aren't that impressive.

So earlier in the day I was speaking with the English Club advisor about the club and funds (or lack thereof). English Club gets no respect. I soon found out that some other clubs feel the same way b/c they receive the same treatment. When we request money they only give us about $100 for an entire academic year of activties. 11 months of activities with only about $100, while the sports teams get thousands of dollars. The baseball team, fencing team, and boat (rowing) club get a majority of the money. The fact that they get more YEN is not really an issue, but it's they way it is doen. We request money and they basically lmit us to a certain amount no matter what our activities are. Then they say, if an event comes up make a request for money and then it will be granted at that time.

Now that we request money for other activities, we are being told that there is no more money alloted for us....uh...really?!...So then today I ask Can we raise money? The answer was Sure! I gave two suggestions of simple fundraisers that would be easy to understand (a raffle and candygrams). Then I was told that the school wouldn't really approve them b/c Japanese people don't like to deal with things directly related to money. This applies even more to the students. They don't want the students involved in things with money b/c issues may arise. Hmm...so you won't give us any money for the club activities, you say that we can raise funds if we want, but you won't approve any activities that have students raising funds...I'm confused, but then again I am not b/c I am in Japan. So the advisor and I talked about possibly doing the (foreign food basket) raffle and I would be the one to collect money and waiting until next March to get more money from the student committee.

So onto AB....still on the student's brains. I was talking to a student about math. Then she says that she doesn't like it...nani nani nani....then the convo switches to AB-san like math though. He is good at it....AB-san this...AB-san that...these students amaze me...they are so funny...AB left J about 5 months ago and
they are still talking about him and recalling facts......LOL!

crazy kids!!!

3 signs that winter will be here very soon:

1. They are selling nengajou [New Year's Post Cards] in most stores
2. The city has started putting boards around the shrubs to keep teh weight of the snow from damaging them
3. My students are beginning to wear their sole winter item....a muffler

The biggest indication of winter here (the snow!) has not appeared yet. YEAH!

To quote myself:

In the meantime, I will soon put my snow tires on and the warm(toi)let is getting a bit less warm everyday...[Queen Takeyah, 11/10/03]

I always hear other ALTs talking about their students jumping out of teh windows during class. Fortunately, or unfortunately for comedy sake, the stories are not from Aomori folx. It's usually people down south. I think we are too conservative to wild out like that up here. I am very glad that my school isn't like GN's.

I went to the store today to buy a mini-vac. When I went to check out the woman asked me for my member's card. Wasuremashita [I forgot it] so she asked for my telephone number. No matter how many times I said it she could hear me and still kept messing it up, then eventualy I had to write it down. The thing is...I was speaking Japanese. This happens often...people see that I am not Japanese...very obvious and I can tell that part....and they automatically tune you out.

Plans are underway to break out of J..hey that rhymes. But for real, I am Hong Kong bound. I am looking forward to the trip. I aqm not sure what I am going to visit, but I am going...should be fun.

I thought this was funny. I particularly like the Bajan, Jamaican Patois, and East African English...LOL...

I wonder if the election results would serve as a valid reason for a sick day. It was an interesting day yesterday. I too my English Club to America the air base yesterday. Since yesterdya was Culture Day in Japan, we had the day off. Since the base folx do not celebrate J holidays, it was a great opportunity for them to go to the HS and check out how they do things in American schools. I had pretty good coverage of the [s]election b/c they had TVs in all of the classrooms and the teachers had them on the local (US) stations. By the time I left the base it was (basically) a done deal.

In other equally important news...just kidding...at our morning meeting all of the teachers were informed that 'one of our 2nd year students is seeing a man who wants her to choose between him and the other man that she is seeing'. _(^.~)_ Strange?! Of course not. Apparently the called our school and talked to someone here about it. The thing is that he doesn't know her family name, but they have been seeing each other. She has at least two boyfriends, him and another cat, and he asked the school to tell her that she should choose...LOL...when I asked what they were going to do, I was told that they have the student's first name, but there are 6 students with that same name and non of them 'seem' like they would have two boyfriends.... ijoudesu [finished]

I'm MINISHED! I feel significantly better now that I have submitted mny paper. The tile ended up being a simple "Africa's Access to HIV Antiretrovirals"...la la... :)

Time for some sleep

It's 4:26AM and I need the strength from a higher power. I really DO! Working on my research paper for my class. Getting things organized to submit...BOOM...my windows close...about 16 sources/articles gone! JUST LIKE THAT! Oh nooey....so now I am back to square 2 (not "square 1" b/c I still have a very rough draft of things still) and the paper needs to be submitted in 8 hours. So here I am doing my thing and now I have to write to the professor to ask him for an extension, just in case I can't retrieve my information by the deadline....BOOOOOOOOOO :(