Gotta love being a whitie SOMETIMES....

And last night was one of them.

I spend a LOT of time and energy bitching about the things that suck dog's balls about being a whitie and living in Japan. The stares, (although as my husband pointed out, if I really hated them that much I wouldn't have platinum blond hair... good point!) the old dudes making signs with their arms, the fact that most people just assume you don't speak Japanese, the shock and amazement at the fact us barbaric whities have the motor skills to operate a pair of chopsticks... You know, stuff like that. But last night was one of those times where being a whitie and having a white-ish baby with you really came in handy.

Last night Ryo-chan had a nomikai so I dropped him off and then went to the school to do a bit of work while Ash was hanging out with the in-laws. As I was finishing off some work I heard the familiar summer sounds of the bon odori (summer festival) going on in the paddock near our house. Does anyone else think the bon odori songs sound like Bollywood movie music!? No, just me?! I swear to god every time I hear them I think of being in an Indian restaurant, which then leads to fantasies of bastard hot curries and sweet sweet nan bread... Ooops, just had to wipe some drool of the keyboard...

Anyway, seeing as though it was a Friday night, and with Daddy away and no sexy European man to have an affair with in sight, I made the executive decision to take Ash for a look at the festival. So got home and MIL was out the front getting Ash's shoes on, she had also made the executive decision to go to the festival, so cool, 'let's go together!!' was her enthusiastic response!

So off we toddled, crazy MIL, the little half-blood and I. What a trio! When we got there, there was the usual neighbourhood gossip mongers there to greet and a few students who seemed to be in disbelief that I had a life outside of teaching them English for an hour every week, and we also met a few kids from Ash's kindy who were there. It was noice, very friendly, very local.

For anyone who has never been to a bon odori, it is basically usually a big field, with a big arse tower in the middle where old dudes bang drums, ring bells and play the bollywood like (but in Japanese!) music. Then a bunch of, I'm going to say 90% old-ish ladies, do a traditional dance around the tower, although last night was a pretty good mix of ages and even a few of the blokes were getting into it! There are also lanterns all around making it very 'Asian pretty.' Then along one side of the field there is a line of little stalls with games for kids, various food stalls and places where kids can catch goldfish.

So we watched the dancing for a while and Ash had a go at waving his hands round like an old J-woman and all was well, until a lady from down the road grabbed me and INSISTED I dance behind the teacher. Fuuuuuucccccckkkkkkk.
Everyone was looking at me for being the token white girl anyway, I really didn't want to draw more attention to myself, but she's a lovely old duck and was quite persuasive, literally shoved me into the non-stop circle of dancers! So I fumbled after the sensei and inevitably clapped in all the wrong places and kept turning the wrong way. I must have looked like a big dick but Ash seemed chuffed I was making a dick of myself and all the old dudes standing round watching were very encouraging and yelling things like , "Ohhhhh VERY GOOD!!" I did two times round the circle and then ducked out, discreetly as I could.

By this time, Ash was sick of the dancing and was looking with wide eyes at all the kids running around with toys and flashing devil horns on their heads, it was also at this point that both MIL and I realised we had left the house without our wallets. After some discussion MIL decided to run home and grab her wallet so we could get Ash his flashy things and go home. So off she went. Ash and I then did a little walk along the stalls to see what was on offer, everyone was very friendly but then we came to the balloon stall and 3 drunk old Occhans struck up a conversation with me, or should I say yelled random English at me and then hoped I'd respond...

DRUNK 1- Ohhhhh America!? America!

ME- Oh, err, no, Australia!

DRUNK 1- AUSTRALIA!!! Errrr KOALA, KANGAROO!!!!

ME- Yes!! That's it! (I was surprisingly cheerful, how could you not be, he was a pissed old geezer on the job at a summer festival!?)

DRUNK 2- Ohhhh I went to Australia!

ME- Really, how was it??

DRUNK 2- TOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!!! HE IS OCTOPUS!! (pointing to a bald Drunk 3)

ME- Oh, really...?

DRUNK 3- What's octopus?! Ohhh, tako!! Yes! Yes! I am Takooooooo!!!!!

This banter went on for a while as the drunk guys' families looked on in slight embarrassment. After a few minutes talking, Drunk 1 scurried off and came back with free juice for Ash, and free beer for me. Thank you Drunk 1! Then drunk 2 gave Ash AND his friend from kindy (a little girl) a balooney thing, saying they should get married when they were older to keep the international marriage going! Ummm what the...? THEN drunk 3 scurried off to the toy table and gave Ash an array of free flashy things. So we ended up with all the stuff we needed, I called MIL and told her not to bother coming back, we were given all the goodies on account of being white! Looooovvveeee being a whitie!

Incidentally, on the way home, we encountered another whitie, quite rare in our little corner, he may have been on homestay, he had the awkward teenager look about him, anyway, MIL gives him a random "hello" and then said to me, "Who was that!?" To which, I replied, "Who are all these millions of Japanese people??" and even that was pretty ironic because she actually did know most people who were around us...

A good night was had by all though, the drunk dudes looked chuffed for having communicated with an alien, Ash got flashy free shit, I got free beer and Ryota came home full of beef and liquor from the nomikai!

The top 5 things about being a whitie in Japan...

1) You get given free shit at bon odoris.

2) Your whole life feels like one big holiday.

3) You have the freedom to bitch freely and without consequence about Japanese systems and traditions.

4) If you're an ugly, nerdy white ranga you can get a decent looking girlfriend (although she'll probably be a gaijin hunter... beware the gaijin hunter!!!)

5) Life is never boring.

JAPAN RANT!!!

Woooooo it's been awhile since the fair land of the rising sun has warranted a ranty bitch on here, been too busy ranting about husbands and in-laws I guess.

So here's the deal- Next month, Ryota has his yearly health check-up for his job (he works for the city if you've just joined us). He will not go, he will fake a fever that day. Why?! I hear you cry... Because, if he attends this check-up, he will be fired.

Sound ridiculous?? Errr, yes. Why?? No, the love handles brought on by foreign wifey cooking won't get him fired, it is the fact that he has a tattoo, OK, two tattoos.

What fucking year are we living in again??

This 'anti-tattoo,' 'anti-facial hair,' 'anti-piercing,' 'anti- ANYTHING individual' rule really, really pisses me off, like so so much I get all flushed and red when I talk about it, this red face syndrome happened yesterday after Sassymoo and I were toying with the idea of going to the local pool and I had this conversation with MIL:

ME: I can't believe Japan is so fucking backward when it comes to things like tattoos... I don't want to wear 5 rolls of fucking sports tape to hide my tattoos!

MIL: Hmmmm but Japanese people associate tattoos with the yakuza so...

ME: How many years ago?? People KNOW tattoos don't mean yakuza anymore.

MIL: Yeah... It's pretty hard to change the Japanese way of thinking, Japanese people are pretty stupid!

She actually said that- 日本人はバカね！MIL is pretty awesome with things like that, she's not old school thinking at all, Grandma is very old school and basically told Ryota to go sleep in a rice paddy after she saw his tattoo for the first time.

So if Ryo-chan goes to his health check, he will fail on all accounts, facial hair- usually, yes. Piercings- Yes, well, the holes at least. Tattoos- yes. He gets a big fail in the fitting in with society boxes. And the tattoos aren't even visible, only when he gets his gear off for the doctor to 'moshi-moshi' him. Of course in a perfect world, even visible tattoos wouldn't be such a big deal, but I know that visible tattoos aren't accepted either, I'm cool with that, hence why I've held off getting the wrist to elbow tattoo I've wanted for so long, but I'm talking easy to cover tattoos that the public will never have to see.

Now personally, I'm encouraging him to go to the health check, get fired, and then sue the city's arse for it, it sounds ridiculous but a postman in Japan recently sued Japan post for firing him because he had a beard. (Read about this champion here!)And he won, and you know what, I want to find him and give his bearded face a big wet, sloppy kiss, because it's blokes like that hairy geezer who are going to change this god damn backward-arse country we're living in! If I go to the pool and kick up a discrimination stink with my mafia associated tattooed body, I will be seen as another crazy, hippy, obnoxious gaijin. But if a Japanese person does it, at least some people might pay attention.

OK, rant over but expect another one on the day of his health check when he's wasting one of his paid holidays on the fucked up system that encourages everyone to be lemmings.

P.S. Reading over that, I'm glad it's Friday, teeny tiny bit stressed me thinks!

Happy weekend!!!

My wannabe bad boy!

So, was going through some of Ryota's old photos last night, (another thing I miss about home, not being able to go through old photos whenever I want!!) and came across some photos of when he was a little punk bad boy. The longer I get to know him, the more shocking his little 'gang' antics are. Over the last two years I have slowly gained knowledge of shocking stories of sex, alcohol, stealing various things including a police car joy ride, and various other sordid little tales! A far cry from my studious Junior high school days!

So here are a few funny pics we dug up and had a bit of a giggle over. Let's hope he doesn't see these, he'd kill me if he knew all you lovely readers were laughing at his expense!

With a fellow gang member. They all had crazy hair colours and they each had a coloured suit, Ryo-chan was "Mr Red..."

How old can that kid on the right be!? Ryota was a chain smoker by the time he was 13!

Peace signs look innocent?? Look closer, Ryota is the one sitting down with a cup of alcohol and a ciggie in his hand!!

Little bit older, strike that hard arse pose!

This one was post tattoo, so after his brain had been injected with rebel western influence after a year in America "studying" AKA smoking dope. Love the hard arse pose in front of some storybook character picture AND that hair!!!!

There are many more incriminating snaps that grandma was going through, she didn't seem to flinch even when there were photos of Ryota smoking when he was like, 12!
Apparently they had quite a tight little group with their gang status and were feared in the Junior high school world. Woooooooo.
I'm glad Ryota got on the straight and narrow though, a few of the gang members have ended up in jail, and one guy we occasionally still see is a host!
The kid in the second photo with the ciggie in his mouth died when he was 15 after speeding off on his scooter and straight into an oncoming car right near our house, we always go slow when we come to that corner in case some other punk kid is doing the same thing...

Ryota's BFF was also part of the gang, but he's also on the straight and narrow salary man path and apparently never really fit in to the bad boy scene either. It's funny how certain things can change your life so dramatically, if Ryota hadn't gone to America, he probably would have stayed in Japan and got into more trouble, and probably would never have met me!

Rice fields and babies...a far cry from the bad boy days...

Also worth a mention is my mini bad boy is one and a half today, can really not believe how quickly time is going. Happy 1 and a half birthday son!

Japanese wifey negotiation skills 101...

Passed with distinction!

When I approached Ryota about the stuff I wrote yesterday (ie. Me doing everything in the house AND working) I thought about it carefully and decided I could go about it two ways:

THE AUSSIE WAY...
"Oi fucker, I'm not only working full-time to support us but am also getting stuck with all this housework bullshit. Fair go mate, get off your arse and cook dinner will ya'!"

THE JAPANESE WAY...
"Welcome home husband! *kiss* Did you have a good day, you poor thing, you work so hard for us every day! Thank you!
So.... I've been thinking, and it's really not fair for you to wait for me to eat dinner, so the days that I'm going to be late, I'll feel much less guilty if you can whip yourself something easy up or eat at your mum's house. What do you think...?"

I went for the Japanese way, and it worked! I'm still actually in shock from the rational response I got from him, he was all "Of course, it's hard for you to make dinner when you get home and easier if I just get something myself" AND he folded and put away the 4 days worth of washing that was in the basket while I was giving Ash a bath!!! Where the fuck did that come from?!
Maybe all you wise women commenters are right, he really does just need to be spoon fed instructions or else he won't think about it! So tonight he's eating at the in-laws and I feel much better just knowing that I don't have to worry about rushing home and making something.

It's amazing how you can twist words around to get exactly what you want... I'm discovering more and more that Japanese women are masters of this, they come off all submissive and trampled, but they actually get whatever the fuck they want out of the situation. Amazing. I'm still an amateur in this field but will do my best to become a master manipulator by my 10th wedding anniversary.

In other news.... Not much to report, had a terrible night's sleep last night, does anyone else get this; you put the AC on, fall asleep then get too cold so you turn it off in a sleepy slumber only to wake up again sweating your titties off! Soooo annoying, we woke up at least 5 times last night in that horrible pattern. Maybe we should invest in a good fan for sleeping...? Fuck I don't know. I also had horrible horrible heat nightmares, I was being chased by some dude who wanted to cut my skull open. Loooooooovvvveeellllyyy.

So... Why are you tired?

The 4 little words that every mother/SAHM/working mother/wife of an unappreciative cock hate to hear. WARNING- man rant coming up, not just mine, but ALL of the bastard cocks!

No not really, well a bit. I've been incredibly busy lately, look I even took a picture of my schedule to prove it...

And honestly, I'm feeling the pressure. I would like to think I'm a relatively tough cookie, I don't usually get too upset by stress or being busy, I actually thrive under stress (but with lots of hissy fits in between...) but lately, I'm feeling the pressure of being a: mother (the biggest fucking stress producing role ever!?), a wife, a housekeeper, a cleaner, a taxi service, (by bastard bicycle in the heat) a people, or I should say grandma, pleaser, a business owner, a teacher, administrator, a foreigner, a daughter and sister, a friend, and all the other stuff that I am that can't really recall at the moment... Yes yes, woe is me, I know I really don't have it that bad, but lately I feel like something has got to give or my pretty little gaijin head may just explode.

I guess I feel that since I've started working (pretty much full-time if you add it all up) I don't feel like much of the house responsibility type shite has shifted from me. The only difference is that I just leave it all now, it doesn't get done by anyone else, just gets left. Take last night for example, I was teaching at the school until 7:30pm but then I have to finish any paperwork, do any prep I have for morning lessons and close up. Now, let me tell you first off that Ryota's job is incredibly shit, he works like a slave from some ancient civilisation in the heat and I can safely say his job is much harder than mine, BUT I don't think rustling something together for dinner is that much to ask. At the moment I pretty much buy, prep and think about our dinner every morning, then get anything ready that I can't do in the morning when I get home from work. And it's fucking crap. I'm tired when I get home and the last thing I want to do is cook and/or eat. So I feel if Ryota could organise himself and Ash with something, I'd honestly just settle for toast. But how to broach this subject with a Japanese man!? He may keel over from shock if I suggest it.

I was particularly fucked last night as had done two trial lessons and a kids lesson which all require me to transform into some kind of smiley, genki robot. When I got home, Ash had been fed (by Grandma) but not bathed and Ryota hadn't eaten dinner despite getting home 2 hours earlier. I guess it's not fair to bitch too much about it though because I'm sure if I had called and asked him to get himself something he would of, or scabbed something from the in-laws... So maybe I should just tell him to do that?? Perhaps this is my problem of not being forward enough to just flat out tell Ryota that unless I'm home I will never want to be arsed cooking dinner so late at night...

Anyway, last night, Grandma was harping on as soon as I got in the door about putting Ash in the bath (I think she's given up nagging Ryota, it just doesn't work...), and Ryota was sticking up for me, saying 'We'll put Ash in the bath later, Corinne's been working, she's hungry.' I did appreciate him sticking up for me, but if he thinks that far then surely he could go that extra bit to say, 'ok I warmed up the eel and put it on the rice, let's eat!'

So up until that point I really wasn't that cheesed off with him, it was the conversation after dinner that made me want to take a blunt knife and hack a testicle or two off...

ME: (Almost falling asleep and rubbing my pounding head)

HIM: So..... Why are you so tired?

ME: (Mentally pulling the knife out...) Errr because I worked today, and did the housework... and got dinner ready... and gave Ash a bath....

HIM: Oh. But you only taught 4 lessons right??

ME: (Left testicle is already off in my mind) The lesson is the easy part, I also had to prepare them you know, they don't just appear out of nowhere!

I would have continued on the 'unappreciated teacher' route but I knew it would have been lost on the prick.

I shouldn't really get so worked up, I think it's more to do with my stress rather than his actions, but I think we'll have a chat tonight about it anyway.

Here's hoping there's no explosive fights to report back tomorrow!!

Does anyone else feel overwhelmed by the general shite they have to do everyday, or should I check myself into the loony bin while I'm ahead!!??

Back from the cattle call.

Moooooo, mummy cow and baby cow are back from the year and a half cattle call check-up and happy to report that apart from being on the chunky side, Ash is perfectly healthy! He's in the 90 percentile for weight and height, so despite saying he was too fat, they said it was fine because he has the balance going for him.
No cavities, although I don't know how that happened, little bastard never lets me brush is teeth... could point to the car and would not stop saying BANANA!! BANANA!!! and managed to make a building with blocks so checks out in the mental department too. He had a great time stealing all the anpanman balls from all the other pip squeak kids, he was actually carrying 5 at a time while all the other kids bawled their eyes out. So despite being tuckered out and in need of a power nap, I'm relieved that he's one healthy little chubster.

As usual I got the , "Ooooooo he's so big!! But then you're big too so...." which never ceases to offend me despite the meaning of 'big' in Japanese not having the same connotations as English, and random mothers spitting out English words and edging closer to me to suck some free English out of me and cram it in to their kiddies' brains. No freebies this time biatches, I was handing out business cards left right and centre!

Ryota's dopey BFF was over last night where they had a secret surfers meeting which involved lots of smoking, drawing diagrams of dream surf boards and fantasising about doing a three-day surfing trip. Ha! Over my dead body, if there are any three day beach trips going on I am sooooo in on that action. He also presented me with about $20 worth of Australian money that he had left over from when he lived there which was nice but annoying at the same time as was all in $1 coins...Ironic too as he doesn't speak a word of English despite living there for a year! He also made the observation that Ashton looks like the English soccer player Wayne Rooney, who was voted the ugliest player of the world cup!!! Thanks for that! But when he got the picture up on the computer, I can actually see the resemblance, zannen Ash, zannen...

Apart from that, not much going on, got a busy night at the school so best be off to do some work!

Just call me st kolin...

Patron gaijin saint of all that is good, I did my good deed for the year and donated blood today!

We went on a shopping expedition to find my sister a birthday present and the blood bus happened to be at the shopping centre and if I have the time I always give blood, cos you know, we might need that shit one day!!

Now ryota doesn't see the point in giving blood, he's never needed any therefore feels he never will and got quite pissed when I said I was going to donate, I shamed him for not at least supporting my decision, even if he doesn't donte himself!! Wanker, the only reason he was cut was because he would have to look after ash by himself for 20 minutes and OH MY GOD, shock horror!!! There wasn't one of his female relatives within a 1km radius to bail his lazy arse out. I then told him that he could suck it up for a few minutes seeing as though I take ash shopping with me all the freaking time and it's really not that big of a deal. twit still bitched and moaned though and even tried to sabotage my donation by saying to the guy, "she has tattoo!!! She has like 5!!!" the guy looked at him like he was a twit and told him it was fine, and rightfully so.

I started to give blood to get over my fear of needles but I actually like it now, and it didn't hurt at all today but like a big dickhead I fucking killed my arm when I ripped the band aid off, so I leave you from the annoying Sunday phone blog with evidence of my stupidity...







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Whaddaya mean we're weak whities!?

OK, this will be a quickie, as Ryota went surfing this morning at 3:30am, got home at 2pm, then slept till 4:30pm when I had to wake him up because I have a ton of work to do. WANKER!!!!
But I'm letting my frustrations out here as to keep a calm weekend household. I wouldn't mind so much except that Monday Ash has his year and a half checky thing which means he won't be at kindy but I still have a zillion lessons (OK just 4) to teach and have to plan today or else I'll have to come in to the school tomorrow, and well, fuck that. So I'm taking a deep breath, sucking it up and just doing it. Well, in between blogging that is...

So Ashton has a tendency to get quite a bad rash on his face in extreme weather, or non- extreme weather, he's just prone to getting them, my sister appropriately labelled him "Rashy Ashy" at birth. There's great bullying material right there!
Anyway, he's got some bad rash action going on at the moment from the heat or sun or pool every day or whatever. And I'm really not that concerned, it doesn't appear to bother him that much, he doesn't itch it or anything. So yesterday the kindy teacher came to talk to me about it, I hate it when they come up to me with a look on their face like someone has died...

SENSEI: (Who is hard to take seriously because is wearing pigtails, socks with little faces on the toes and an over sized pink apron) Hmmmm Ash's face is pretty bad today...

ME: Yeah, it is quite bad today. He has quite sensitive skin, I do as well and especially when I was a kid...

SENSEI: OHHHHHH, I see, yeah well you are so white, and white people are so weak...

ME: Errr, yes, the whiteness possibly has something to do with it, as opposed to your bright yellow skin...?

OK I didn't say the last bit, but had I had the balls and if humour was an excepted thing to use in this country I would have.
The direct translation of 'yowai' and 'shiroi' is pretty bad, I know she didn't actually mean 'weak whitie' but with my brain doing direct translations I did have a little giggle.

So I said I'd go to the skin clinic today and stupidly, let MIL over hear me. I fucking hate the skin clinic, not only does the stupid twat of a doctor give me the same shitty cream with a 'baby pooh' sticker on it, (ironic seeing as real baby poo has a high probability of being smeared on a bodily surface if we aren't careful) but that fucking clinic usually has at least a two-hour wait, and that's if you're re-dialling the phone every minute from 6am. So I decided if the wait wasn't too long, I'd go first thing, but if not I'd piss off for breakky with Ash seeing as though Daddy was out surfing.
So I called the reservation number at 8am, an hour and a half before opening and the wait was already 109 minutes so I wouldn't have been getting there until about 11 and in this bastard heat that just wasn't an option. So I got the Aussie steroid cream out and put some of that on him. MIL came shuffling over telling me that I obviously hadn't understood the phone call properly and she would do it, so she did and she got exactly the same result (wooo one for the gaijin!!) but said I should go anyway as Saturday was the only time Ash could go. I told her that I wasn't going to the clinic I was going out with Ash and that Japanese medicine doesn't fucking work anyway so thanks for her concern but he'll be fine. She gave disapproving mumbles and probably still was as we were tucking into our morning sets. Fuck her, no doubt Ryota will get a full 'naughty gaijin report' tonight though, let's see if he DARES say anything, I doubt it.

OK, must work!!!!

Foto Friday

Not much to report today, I'm sweating in places I never knew were there, (eew) had a pretty cruisey Friday with a few lessons and a coffee in between with Sassymoo and her Princess. Feeling a bit drained after getting chores done, lesson planned, shopping done, dinner cooked, and jogging all done before 11am.

So here are the beach piccies, finally!

Our view of the beach...

TITS! WTF haha. Nice smile from the wee lad though.

Sassymoo's cute little family...

My boys + dim wit BIL...

Ashton after smacking his head somewhere it seems...

There are lots more that I can't be arsed uploading, I'll put them on FB now so have a squiz there, happy weekend!

Stop that small North Korean boy!!!!

OK, there has been lots of bitching and moaning going on lately, so I thought I'd give you a chuckle at the ridiculousness of the alien SIL. There are some bitching undertones but it's all very tongue-in-cheek, and 'it's so racist it's hilarious...'

First of all, I should point out that I am incredibly lucky in my life, reading some lovely gaijin ladies' blogs of late and it seems the shitty god has been dealing out some crap to foreign women in Japan, so despite Ryochan being a cock, Ashton being one big tanty, and the in-laws being extremely annoying, I do actually have it very very good!
Howwwwwwever, alien SIL has done it yet again, her asian-hating ways had been quite tame of late, but her racism reared it's ugly head yesterday when she started scribbling furiously on all of Ashton's outside toys...

I was curious as to what she was doing, although the fact that she was writing random shit on random objects wouldn't have surprised me, all over the in-laws' house her name is scribbled. On walls, the bathroom mirror, the shower door, the toilet door. I never bothered to ask why she felt the need to write her name on surfaces of the house, maybe I should though... Anyway, I leaned over her shoulder and saw a huge pile of Ash's toys spread out on the floor, the toys were divided into two groups, inside toys and outside toys. And there she was, happily writing away all over his toys, now this didn't concern me too much but I felt the need to ask what the fuck she was doing anyway, this is how it went:

ME: What are you doing?

ALIEN: Writing Ash's name on all his toys that go outside.

ME: Ohhh, that's a good idea, so he will be able to start reading his name, right? (I couldn't really think of any other reason) You should write half of them in Japanese and half of them in English!!!

ALIEN: NO! It's so that dirty little north Korean next door doesn't pinch them!!!

ME:..................... (Thinking, "must blog this later....")

So she was writing his name on all the toys because she didn't want the poor kid next door (who's parents and grandparents were born in Japan but is still a dirty-blooded Korean according to the alien) to get his little Korean hands on any of Ash's toys. What a bitch!! I should point out too, that this kid is 2 years old, smaller than Ash and gets bullied BY ASH! Ash is usually the one taking all the toys off the poor little bugger. Plus, he doesn't actually live next door, it's his grandmother's house, but apparently the alien is preparing in advance for when his mum has her second baby and they go back to the jikka. She actually really thought it through too.
And to show you just how meticulously she has planned 'operation no Korean sticky fingers' here are a few photos of some poor little fishes who have been branded by her, they are seriously teeny weeny fishes that will probably get lost down a drain somewhere rather than stolen by the poor little boy. She'll have to make an inventory list too...

Sweaty ears and fork throwing.

Can I just say, before I get on to the MASSIVE blow out Ryochan and I had last night, that sweaty ears make me really angry. Does anyone else get sweaty ears?? Not around the ear, not outside the ear, like, actually IN the inside of you ear?? Went for a run this morning and my ear phones kept slipping out due to this problem, then when I finally got them wedged back in I could hear the squelchy sweaty sound over my music. Is there any way I can avoid this!? I ended up wiping out my ears and earphones with my top in the end, must have looked pretty funny though, some random gaijin flashing some tit in order to wipe out her ears...

Anyway, I can safely say that last night was the most angry I've EVER been at Ryota and the loudest I've ever shouted while I've been in Japan. It was kind of good though, it was a short and sweet blow out (followed by a nice make-up international relations meeting!) so we're totally over it, but I think Ryota was just shocked at how angry I actually got.

Basically, it started from what I wrote yesterday, that Ryota and I are definitely going to disagree on the disciplining Ash issue.
We were eating cheesecake at the in-laws house and Ash was taking his fork and running around and tripping over things. Now, I wasn't even that concerned with the food all over the floor thing (hehe not my carpet!) and even the running was OK with me, but running with a fork just brings back memories of my 6th grade primary school teacher telling horror stories of kids running with long, sharp objects and that long, sharp object going through the kid's brain. Probably a total lie, but still, common sense says running with a fork is not going to end well. So I tried to get Ash to sit down and eat, when he refused and it was clear he just wanted to run around, I took the fork off him. Off course screaming and big tanty followed. I ignored it and intended to ignore it until he got over it. This is where Ryota challenged me. He was all "Ohhh he doesn't understand, just give it to him he's being so noisy!" It pissed me right off and I calmly explained to Ryota that a) Ash understands much more than Ryota thinks, b) the dangers of running with a fork and c) he needs to man the fuck up and support his wife.

Ryota sulked for a while before Ash went crying to him with fork in hand, now this is where I got really fucking furious. Ryota grabbed the fork off him, threw it into the kitchen (a pretty far distance) and yelled at Ash that he couldn't have it. Childish much!? He was clearly doing it to make a point to me but Ash was really scared, fuck we all were, he used a really angry voice.
This is the point where I went off, the whole house went silent as I ripped into Ryota with an angry voice I never knew I had in me. Maybe it was my maternal instincts taking over, but I was quite scary. I basically told Ryota to grow the fuck up and that it was the stupidest thing he has ever done. It's actually really hard to explain the tone of voice I used but it was the kind of tone where everyone knows you're not fucking around. It didn't help matters that Grandma had retrieved the fucking fork and given it back to Ash but that was beside the point by then... I stormed out of the house slamming doors behind me leaving Ryota with a a gobsmacked look on his face.

Not long after Ryota followed me home and said sorry for being childish, at least he knew he was being a twat. And then we actually communicated like good parents should! I explained the reasons for wanting to be more strict with Ash and he told me why he wanted to be more lenient with him. We agreed that it is definitely a 'parenting cultural difference' and that we would both try and meet more in the middle and support each other. He did have a big go at me for yelling at him in front of his family (chonan pride coming in there) but fuck it, it'll do him good to be brought down a few notches.

Props to MIL, she was actually supporting me in the no fork running thing, and congratulated me later for standing my ground against Ryota.

All was good though, we talked, apologised, got over it and shagged- now that's good parenting!

Mojo

Is a no-go.

Feeling incredibly lazy today, possibly the fact that it's 50 million degrees outside, or it may have more to do with the fact that Sassymoo has lent me the 1st season of supernanny and I'm totally addicted and am so in to it I feel like sending myself to the naughty step, apologising and giving myself a hug!

Supernanny has got me thinking about the whole discipline issue with Ash, I can see this will be our next battle and one that probably won't end for a long time. My first hurdle will be Ryota, but like a small dog, with repetition and explanation, he'll come round to my way of parenting. The real problems will be the in-laws. Am I talking about them again!?

It's already starting, yesterday Ash had pinched a wooden spoon from the kitchen and was banging the glass doors really fucking hard with it, like to the point where I was flinching because I thought the glass might break. Ryota wasn't around, just alien SIL, Grandma and me. And of course, nobody but me was willing to do anything to stop him. So after 'making eye-contact' and using a 'stern low toned voice to tell him to stop' (Ohhh Jo Jo would be so proud of me!!) he continued to bang so out of sheer concern that the glass really was going to break I took the spoon off him and sat on it. (Ha! No chance of getting spoony out from under this fat arse son! Hmmmm fat arse-ness does have some advantages!) Of course he had a fucking tanty as 1 and a half year olds do, but there was a million other toys there and I knew he'd take a minute to get over it and move on to destroying something else.
Grandma however, had different ideas. If the spoon wasn't hidden under my layers of blubber she would have given it back to him I'm sure, but instead she made a big deal of him crying (therefore enabling him to get attention when he throws a fucking wobbly). Alien also chimed in, picking Ash up and giving him cuddles and telling him how 'kawaisou' it was he'd had his spoon taken away.

I also caught her giving him fucking jelly lollies RIGHT before bed. Seriously, it was like 10:30 at night and she was feeding him pure sugar the big, skinny twat, I know she doesn't have kids and doesn't know any better but I have told them all specifically to not give him any snacks before meal time or before bed time. But my small, insignificant gaijin voice is all too often lost in this little part of the world. I shall persist though, if I say it enough times something will filter through, surely!?

MIL was also being a twat this morning, I took Ash to kindy in the car and as he struggled when I went to put him in his seat she told me that lately if she took him in the car (luckily this rarely happens) she puts him on the passenger seat next to her. I actually gave her a look that clearly said "you're a fucking moron." She saw the filthy look I threw her way as I strapped Ash in and was all, "Ahhh maybe it's not that good though, because then he'll get used to it..." Errr, yes, hence him having a hissy fit now you dickhead, not to mention the fact that if the car was to crash his fat little head would go straight through the windscreen! She said that she hadn't even thought of that. How the hell did her 3 kids survive!? Although Ryota almost drowned once when she wasn't looking and a stranger had to pull him out of the local pool, and any of you who know Ryota IRL know he has a massive scar down the middle of his forehead and nose from when he jumped through a glass cabinet in the hopes of transforming into superman...

Explains a lot now...

Breaking promises

Ok, I did promises nice camera beach piccies for today but I forgot the camera so they will have to keep for another day. In the meantime, let's just settle for words.

As much fun as the beach was yesterday, it was also extremely exhausting. We went to the same beach two years ago, when I was 5 months preggers and I can safely say it was a million times easier with the mini human INSIDE my belly. Ash is still a little bugger and into everything. (From what I know that 'still' continues until he leaves home...) But I shouldn't complain too much, he wasn't that bad for me yesterday and seemed to really like the water despite his obsession with princess P's floaty ring thingy which he just would not let go of and cried if anyone took it away. Little weirdo.

I didn't do too badly in the sunburn department, thought I was going to be a lobster today but I only got a really bad (uneven) burn where my swimmers rode down on my back. My shoulders and face were actually fine for once! But I guess I was pretty paranoid and kept putting suncream on like, every 10 minutes. Ash also escaped with no sunburn, but I'm not surprised since I was lathering him up every 5 minutes or so. Only problem was, I couldn't be arsed looking for the baby suncream towards the end of the day and just put my suncream on him. Had no idea it was 'whitening' suncream and he ended up looking like a little clown, we couldn't get it off him at bath time either, he still has some streaky white lines today!

I felt like Sassymoo, the haalfu offspring, and I were being stared at more than usual, but I guess that's what you get for driving through the country for 3 hours to get to a beach. I guess because there were so many people there it didn't feel like the iinaka but it really was.
The family who were next to us in the beach hut were having good old stares at our lot all day and at one point I heard one of them say "This is a rabbit!!" in a really loud voice.... Twats.

I'm always baffled by this phenomenon, people who don't have the balls to actually come and talk to you but will spit out some random English phrase within your earshot... I usually just smile while thinking 'fuck off you dickhead' or look down and nervously laugh, but I'm not sure what reaction they're looking for? If it's a kid I usually just say hello, or "Harroo" but when it's an adult it can get quite awkward. Maybe next time I should just bark something random at them in Japanese and see what they do...How's あのサルの金玉は大きいな！！（That monkey has huge balls！！）Or something equally as baffling？

Public holiday today, which means Ash and Ryota are at home annoying the shit out of me (Ryota more than Ash). Prime example of the Japanese mummy's boy today, I had to teach a lesson at 9, then I came back home and was going to organise the housey shite but Ryota had taken upon himself to do the washing for me. I'm grateful for the nice thought, but seriously, bugger off out of my area. It's like me following him to work and telling him how to do his job. If I'd asked him to do it, it would have been fine, but I specifically told him not to, why doesn't he just do the dishes or something!?
Anyway, after he did the washing I think he felt he had done his quota for the rest of the year, because he totally checked out and went in to 'MUST HAVE SURF BOARD!!!' mode. I told him to take Ash to Grandma's so I could do the washing-up and vacuuming, and when I went to tell them I was done, he wasn't even with Ash, he was upstairs searching for his board. I can't wait till we actually just have the fucking board and it will be over with!!! I know that while I'm working till 6 tonight Ash will see Ryota for about 5 minutes if he's lucky, and poor little Ash loves him so much. *sigh* And so is the Japanese man who can dump his child and/or all responsibilities with his mother/grandmother/sister for extended periods of time and not get called out on it.

OK, must go teach! Save any more mummy's boy ranting for another time!

Eeek!

20 minutes left before my daily blog deadline! An exhausted Sunday quickie!

Today went beach. Fun. Sunburn fucking ouchie. Tired, rooted, Christmas crackered, buggered, fucked.

That about sums it up, I leave you with some crappy phone piccies and my solemn promise of some good camera ones tomorrow!


















- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Rough day fall out...

I won't say a lot, because I'm just so fucked from the all the hormonally fuelled, emotional shitty crap that has been going on in the last 48 hours!

Who knew I could be so stereotypically girly!

So after my crappy day yesterday, Ryota lived up to his reputation for being a selfish arsehole and despite noticing me limping after the naked fall, hit me with, "didyoucallaboutthesurfboard?!whydidn'tyoucall?!Yousaidyou'dcaaaaaallllllll!!!!" in a tone of voice resembling a small child who wants a choccie at the check out line. Fuck me I was pissed off. Had a busy, crappy day and the last thing I needed was him going on about that fucking surf board one more time. I explained about the calling situation and fibbed and said I got through in the end but the girl there didn't know, which isn't totally a lie, I got the answering machine... But he was so giving me the treatment like I didn't try at all. I finally just got very huffy and ended up in tears as I always do. We ignored each other until I saw him getting his wetsuit ready when he informed me he was going surfing in the morning (today). This got me even more huffy because 1) He leaves at 4am which means he will be tired and more grumpy than usual the rest of the day. 2) He won't get home until after lunch, which is when we were supposed to be going shopping for me for a new *shudder* swimsuit. I cried more, he ignored more. We went to bed. I snivelled and cried into the pillow for another hour or so until he finally said "You should cry until the morning." Of course this had me howling more, for no particular reason, it wasn't that mean actually.... But anyway, I went downstairs and had a few swigs of umeshu and sake in the hope of it knocking me out enough to sleep but it was a no-go. I had visions of cutting his surfboard in two and then chuffing off to the airport and never looking back going through my head keeping me awake.
Anyway, long, teary story short, we made up. He said sorry (for once!) and we cuddled.

Now I'm not sure why I've been so emotional lately but the swimsuit issue may have something to do with it. Like most? all? women, I get nervous about wearing a swimsuit in public. Especially in Japan where every fucker is staring at my tits anyway, but when they're distracted by my lopsided cellulite laden thighs, well, makes it a bit daunting. If I was home at least there'd be other fatties there, but in the land of "OH my god I'm over 45kgs! I'm so fat!!" (direct quote from alien SIL) well, it makes it a bit harder.

Sassymoo and co and our lot are off to the beach tomorrow, hence the swimsuit buying, so I'm really looking forward to it, and I actually did manage to find some swimmers I like, that came with boardies to cover the tumor-like squidgy bits. yay! I also found a nice denim skirt which was good. I ended up going to smile land, I have no idea why it's called that, if you're shopping at smile land there ain't much reason to smile, but it beat Jusco where I looked earlier, all they had was frilly gross stuff that fit, or perfect, cute stuff that didn't and made me cry! (yes I actually welled up in Jusco and vowed to not eat for the next three weeks or so.) Anyway, sure we will take lots of ridiculously cute beach piccies tomorrow and share them with you.

And now, here are the after pics from my fall, the bruise is still coming out, just in time for the beach. Lovely.

Happy long weekend J-peeps!

One of those bleedin days.

Literally and non. I can safely say that this has been one of the most fucked up days in a long time, nothing serious, just a series of events that have all added up to me feeling like I need a bottle of gin and a joint to calm the fuck down and relax a bit!

OK, first and possibly worst thing happened this morning, I went for my usual run after dropping Ash off at kindy, all good, felt great! So got home and was incredibly sweaty, as in dripping all over the place. So of course, I stripped off to my knickers and bra and did my general cleaning up duties that come after jogging (all inside). Then it came to getting the wet washing from the machine. Now I had a dilemma, put clothes on and go out and get the washing, or, discreetly lean out the sliding door in my naked glory and reach out to get the washing. Of course a logical, sane person would just put clothes on, but being hot and lazy, I went for the lean with full knowledge that the next door neighbour was fixing his fence so if I did go outside I would be in full view. And of course, sweaty hands plus leaning chubby gaijin equals I went arse over tit (literally) and ended up sprawled in a heap after doing a full on body splat on the concrete next to the washing machine.

OK, if you're grossed out by feet (or hairy legs for that matter) look away now. If bloody toes gross you out probably best not to look either...

So this was the end result, managed to scrape myself up and cut my toe in the process!! Ouch!!

My upper thigh also has some lovely bruising but I'll spare you the thunder thighs piccie.

On to the next crappy thing then!
As you may know, Ryota has been bitching about his new surfboard for a while now and thinks he's found a cheap one at a factory in Australia, which means I have to call and ask how much, shipping blah blah blah. Cool, no worries, I can call it's no biggie. I rarely call overseas anymore apart from using skype so I had no idea how international calls are done, luckily MIL has a number she knows where you call and then they transfer you through to the international number for a cheaper rate. So she gave me the number but I couldn't get through, then I tried my mum's number and also couldn't get through so knew there was something wrong with the dialling. I tried dropping the zero, leaving the zero, country code, no country code, star key, hash key, every fucking key combination there is and I can't get through. Sooooo fucking frustrating!! Gaijin peeps any advice?? Do you use an international calling service!!?? Hellllllllpppp!!!

But what made it a million times annoying, Ryota called my mobile about 15 times asking if I'd called yet, then gave me a tone of voice like, 'you're not trying hard enough' when I told him I couldn't get through! Mother fucker! I almost lost it, considering I was supposed to be working at the time but I was calling about his cunting surfboard!!! I gave up in the end, he'll just have to wait.

OK, next. My pencil sharpener doesn't work!!!! The fact that this is annoying me so much is evidence of how much the other two things pissed me off, usually I wouldn't care so much, but I paid a good 315 yen for the fucker and now all the pencils come out like this....

Which leads me to make this face....

And finally, do this...

Dear today,

Please just fuck off.

Yours,

Corinne teacher.

Red-faced...

is what I have been, twice today, and it's only lunch time. The first was out of in-law anger, and the second was from jogging. I'd much rather the latter, although at least it gives me something to write about now...

So, it was grandma again this morning that pissed me off. I feel bad, cos, you know, there's an unwritten code that you're not supposed to get pissed at old people, it's just in their nature to be annoying and you have to put up with it, but I think it may be the fact that I can't totally express myself as much as I usually would if I was communicating in my first language that I end up getting ticked off. Who knows, anyway, I think I break all kinds of old people codes when I daydream about throwing grandma off the balcony or shoving one of Ash's socks in her mouth...

So this morning, Ash wakes up, starts randomly clapping, what the fuck?
And then when we get downstairs, instantly starts crying, and not just crying, but wailing at the top of his lungs. Fantastic, great start to the day!
He's getting very demanding lately, now he can communicate a little and actually knows what the fuck is going on around him, but I'm trying to teach him to not just cry, but actually communicate on some kind of civil level to get what he wants. Ha! Good luck to me, it's like ramming my head up against a screaming brick wall, but I shall persist anyway.

So he's crying and carrying on, grabs my hand and takes me to the genkan and points at his little blue thongs (which are terribly cute but far too small for him and pinch his toes). I have no idea why he likes them so much, but he does, so I put them on and then he wanted to go outside, fair enough, shoes-outside, I get the connection. So I am willing to go outside with my birds nest hair and panda eyes from yesterday's make-up with the little bastard and what does he do, goes straight to the in-laws house and starts banging on the door. Little fucker! I'd also got his breakfast ready and wanted him to eat it quickly so we could get off to kindy, but there was no getting him to leave the in-laws house.

Now this in itself gives me little pangs of jealousy, that he would rather go to their house than be with us in the morning, but whatever, I'll deal with it. Anyway, get inside and there are lots of good mornings and all that crap going on while Ash climbs up the step to go inside. Now I live in Japan, where the 'no shoes inside' policy is enforced, but to be honest, I never kept my shoes on inside when I was a kid, it was a rule in our house. (much to the shock of Japanese people who think non pure bloods are all savages) So I start taking off his thongs. It was like I was amputating his feet along with them, the way he screamed, seriously. I knew he would carry on but it was really bad, but I do feel that rules are rules (plus his thongs were covered in mud!!) and that he can just deal with it. But noooo, Grandma shoos me away, actually shooed me!!! And says that he can come inside with his muddy thongs on. Fuck off!!!!! No wonder he wants to go to their house, he gets away with fucking murder and thong wearing and stuff. So I made my little protest saying that he would always want to keep the fucking thongs on now but I was shush-ed this time.

Rules seem to be impossible at the moment, because every fucker but me is breaking them. Makes my attempt at parenting very tough. As expected too, when I finally dragged him home to eat breakfast he had a small seizure when I took his thongs off, but I was so pissed at that point that I just threw them in the genkan, told him too bad and distracted him with Mickey mouse. And despite Grandma's way of thinking, he had actually forgotten about the thongs with the Mickey distraction within about a minute and happily ate his breakfast. Maybe I should make a house arrest rule in the morning so Grandma doesn't fuck with my routine, or perhaps the balcony is an easier option afterall...

I'm not really one...

to blog about the weather, but we take what we can get with this everyday update bullshit. So can I just say, FUCK OFF RAIN! This is the first rainy season where I actually get why it's called 'rainy season.' For the past 5 years I've always taken the piss out of Japanese people when they would harp on about rainy season, and I have now become one of those harpers, it's how I start most conversations these days, and blog entries it would seem.

In other news... I ran 6kms this morning. In the rain. Go me.
I say ran, I think a new event should be invented, and it should be called the 6km puddle dodge. The course where I run is around a pond, so you'd think that all the water would just fuck back off in there, but no. It just seems to make gigantic puddles for me to dodge while running. The puddles were so big this morning, even my giant legs couldn't jump them and I got a lovely case of 'squelchy shoe.' But I must say, running in the rain is so much better, it keeps the Obachan dog walkers and bored Occhans from leaving the house, meaning I'm free to puff my way around the track without the fear of looking like the pathetic fat gaijin girl struggling her way round, wobbly bits and all.

Ryota is home early today, he decided to take half the day off to "help me" read- look at surfboards. But he is going to pick Ash up from kindy and I haven't left any dinner so he'll have to fend for himself and the wee lad from about 5pm onwards. I'll bet 10,000yen with anyone who's willing he goes straight to Mummy's house and scabs their food. he tried to act like the hero last night because when I got home he'd just gotten out of the bath with Ash, he was all dramatic saying how tired he was however I later discovered that Ash had been at MIL's house the whole afternoon, he only gave him a bath and that was it! Sneaky fucker.

OK, best go do some work and make a kindy list for Ryota the poor pathetic pet, or else Ash may come home from kindy with another kid's dirty nappies and the teacher's hat in his bag.

Thanks...

for the advice on the surfboard/smoking/blow job dilemma. Oooo that sounds bad for any first time readers...

I put the smoking deal to him last night (thought I'd try my luck and not mention the blow jobs to begin with) and he laughed at me and said I needed to stop blogging, it was making me think too much. Gee honey, slap my arse and tell me to get back in the kitchen while you're at it! It's still in negotiation stages anyway!

On to more pressing matters, like this...

I found this in the bottom of my crisper (is that what the drawer is called??) and I can safely say I have no idea what it was in it's original form. I'm not too bad with keeping the main body of the fridge respectable, but when it comes to drawers that I rarely open, anything is possible... Could have been garlic...? Fuck, I honestly have no idea, I just sat here for a good 5 minutes squinting at it! Lucky Ryota didn't see it, he would have chucked a wobbly, he gets very narky about bad food in the fridge, yet never feels the urge to clean himself, or if he does huffs and puffs and whinges about it while he's doing it. He hates bad food in the fridge, and hates wasting food, which I'll admit, I'm pretty bad about, I waste way more food than I should.

Which brings me to this morning's little watermelon episode. MIL bought a huge fucking watermelon for some reason. I don't mind it but am not going to eat a whole one, Ryota hates it and the rest of the family aren't that crazy about it either. So when she bought the fucker home I knew we were going to get stuck with a huge chunk that we couldn't eat, and I was right. So last night when Ryota was entranced in looking at surfboards on the Internet (nothing will distract him) I sneakily took the huge chunk out of the fridge and put it in the rubbish ready to go out this morning, I knew Ryota would forget about it so no biggy.

Until this morning, when a little old lady who is a secret member of the rubbish police and otherwise known as Grandma took our rubbish bags from the genkan and offered to put them out with hers. what a sweet old duck, right!? So innocent and nice right!? Wrong. As I was doing my morning wee (hey, we've shared blow job info, what's a wee between friends?) I heard her rummaging through my garbage bag as she discovered the uneaten watermelon. I knew then my cunning plan had failed.

She immediately reported her findings to Ryota who received a 'gaijin gomi no-no' infringement notice and was instructed to give his naughty foreign wife a slap on her chubby wrist. Although Ryota knew not to say too much to me because a) He doesn't eat watermelon so it was partially his fault. b) he knew I would be pissed that our rubbish was being sorted and c) Putting the rubbish out is his job, so it was his lazy arse that should have been doing it, not Grandma. He asked me why I threw it away and I basically just told him the truth; I didn't get a chance to eat it when it was hard (have I still got blow jobs on my mind...?), can't stand papery, soft watermelon. Ewww.

I did forgive Grandma though, she did my rubbish cleaning duties for me when I went to work, because I, as usual, forgot. And to be honest, I think Grandma called MIL (her daughter) a twat in the beginning for buying such a big watermelon.

Anyone gone through your rubbish lately? Stolen your knickers perhaps? If only your life was as exciting as mine...

So yeah, he wants a freakin...

Surfboard!?

The twat-meister, AKA Ryota has told me that he can't live without a new surfboard. Now, despite being Australian, I don't get the surfing thing (probably because I can't do it), but anyone I know who surfs is seriously like a junkie, they just can't stop the urge to surf. I don't get it, but I guess I can imagine what it's like...? Yeah, not really. Anyone who surfs, can you explain it to me??

Not only does he want a new board, he wants a board that costs roughly the same amount as a ticket back home for me. Hmmmm, wonder which one I'll end up forking out for...
And not only is this board bastard expensive, he also has 2, yes 2! perfectly good (according to me) surfboards at home. What the fuck!?

He totally reverse psychology-ised my arse when he asked me about it, setting it up with "Errr I don't want to ask you, because I know you'll tell me to fuck off..." So then I couldn't actually tell him to fuck off so said "Of course you can buy a surfboard for a ridiculous amount of money when you already have two collecting dust. Darling. Pumpkin. Sweet pea!" all through gritted teeth.
But fuck it, who am I to tell him how to spend his hard earned cash anyway, really. He doesn't have many hobbies, smoking is the only one that really pisses me off. He doesn't drink/ go out/ gamble, perhaps I should just let him buy the bastard thing. Or perhaps... I should give him an incentive to stop smoking by saying he gets the new surfboard when he quits!? Ooooo I like that one, although a twice weekly blow job clause may have to be thrown in if I actually want the deal to work...

But enough about blow jobs, must get back to work!

Bugger!

Another quickie from bed!!! Sunday should so be my day off, no place for blogging on the day of rest!

Had a lovely day with some awesome gaijin ladies and their insanely cute kids (piccies to follow!) today at sassymoo's joint. Wish I'd had some drinks instead of driving but have a raging headache now and alcohol probably would only have made it worse.

Ryota informed me today he wants to shell out 90,000 yen on a purchase he desparately needs, can you guess what it is? No cheating sassy!!



Ash hookin in to the snacks...





Fairies!


And my little fairy jumping on the lounge...



Alcomohol!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Engrish...

Is something that I usually find quite amusing living in Japan. It is mostly harmless and unnoticed by the majority of people here, both Japanese and foreign (if you've lived here long enough.) I mean come on, a bakery called "Poo," a hair salon called "oops" and they're only a few of the little gems that are close to my joint!
When I first came to Japan, so many pictures of bizarre/weird/wrong/obscene Engrish were taken, it worked well as souvenirs for family who also found it amusing. But as the years of living here roll on, I find it less interesting and more as the norm.

Hell, I even find myself twisting my once articulate and well-formed sentences into awkward, easy-to-understand clumps of words out of sheer habit.
I'm often told by Japanese people that my English is quite easy to understand, and it is. But only because I speak at a slow motion moron speed with the vocabulary of a fucking 5 year old! (And a 5 year old moron at that!)
I'm running an English school with the appeal of a native teacher, yet my English is more dumbed down than the local pissed salary man spewing out English (among other things).
But hey, the common masses don't know the difference, and if they can at least communicate with an 'alien' without shitting themselves then I guess my work is done.
I actually feel that by using English everyday at the school of late and blogging everyday, my English may actually be getting closer to its original University educated form, although the amount of beer consumed between then and now will also put me behind in the brain cell count...

Anyway, what has got me thinking about this, is the discovery I made yesterday when going through some flashcards at the school. Telling time is a bitch to learn in English, with all the quarter to and half-past action that goes on, but flashcards are a great teaching tool and one I use a lot at the school. So thinking about doing a lesson on time telling, I dragged out some cards I got from the 100 yen store. Now I know, I know, anything from the 100 yen store shouldn't be trusted, but I was still a little bit shocked when I saw this-

Now please please please, if my English has deteriorated THAT much that I'm the one who's getting this wrong, don't hesitate to call me out and I will personally give myself an Osaka comedian inspired slap upside the head, but as far as I know, we never say "eight-quarter" when referring to 8:15. Right!? Eight-fifteen, yes. Quarter past eight, OK. But "eight-quarter"!? What is wrong with this company, seriously!? They make learning flashcards and they don't check that the content is actually correct!? What the fuck is going on here?? Is there not some skinny red-headed gaijin SOMEWHERE in that company picking his nose that could have checked the English before they put them to print!? Employ me fuckers, I'll check that shit quite happily!
I was really astounded by this and almost got inspired to write the company a letter, but had I written it in English they wouldn't have understood it anyway.

And I'm sorry, but I've never said "thirty to six" either. No??

There is a whole group of kids with cheap parents floating around saying "Hey it's "eight quarter" let's go to shopping!" And it will never get any better as long as this shit is around, perhaps I should just quit while I'm ahead and open a hostess bar instead...